[00:00] Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers Show. I'm your host,&nbsp; Paul. And after our big video about DC last week,&nbsp;&nbsp; a new report from the Hollywood Reporter has come&nbsp; out exposing a lot of issues at the studio. This&nbsp;&nbsp; comes in the wake of Supergirl bombing at the box&nbsp; office and talks about some of the issues behind&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:14] the scenes as well as some of the broader problems&nbsp; at DC. Seems like history is repeating itself. And&nbsp;&nbsp; in this video, I kind of want to give it a more&nbsp; I don't hopefully a more balanced look at how&nbsp;&nbsp; these studios make films and why they're running&nbsp; into the same issues over and over and over. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:31] if you cast your mind back to Suicide Squad,&nbsp; then you'll probably remember that this was&nbsp;&nbsp; marketed as this brooding and dark film before it&nbsp; was then cut down to be much more Marvelike and&nbsp;&nbsp; far more comedic. There were needle drops,&nbsp; like them playing Eminem without me. Um,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:47] and basically the film cut to shreds. So, it&nbsp; was completely absent of any of the character&nbsp;&nbsp; development beyond one scene at the end. It was a&nbsp; major turning point in the franchise and clearly&nbsp;&nbsp; showed the studio overreach in which they would&nbsp; actively derail a director's vision in order to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:02] deliver something that they thought the audience&nbsp; might prefer. Now, they had done something&nbsp;&nbsp; similar on Batman v Superman and there was over 30&nbsp; minutes cut from the movie. This was, of course,&nbsp;&nbsp; shown in the Ultimate Edition, which was released&nbsp; on Blu-ray, giving audiences the full cut. Though&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:16] Suicide Squad also got an extended version as&nbsp; well, I think the main difference came down&nbsp;&nbsp; to the fact that you could still feel Snider's&nbsp; hand in the theatrical release and tonally it was&nbsp;&nbsp; basically the same as the Ultimate Edition. Like&nbsp; you watch the theatrical, you watch the Ultimate&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:31] Edition. The Ultimate Edition is just a theatrical&nbsp; with much more scenes in it. It's a much better&nbsp;&nbsp; version. I must uh say that as well. And I highly&nbsp; recommend you check it out if you haven't cuz it&nbsp;&nbsp; basically writes a lot of the wrongs in the movie.&nbsp; As for Suicide Squad though, it's clear they mess&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:45] with the tone, feel, and score. And if we do&nbsp; ever get the air cut, I think it's going to be&nbsp;&nbsp; drastically different to what they put out there.&nbsp; Sort of in the same way that Zack Snider's Justice&nbsp;&nbsp; League is a lot different to Justice League.&nbsp; Unfortunately, it feels like a similar thing still&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:59] happening with there being lots of issues with&nbsp; the final cut of Supergirl. On the 3rd of July,&nbsp;&nbsp; The Hollywood Reporter published an exclusive deep&nbsp; dive titled Behind the Supergirl Bomb, Competing&nbsp;&nbsp; Cuts, Creative Differences. Written by Bora's kid,&nbsp; the piece pulls back the curtain on the trouble&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:14] production of DC Studios second film. Directed by&nbsp; Craig Gillespie, it opened in below projections&nbsp;&nbsp; at just $37.1 million. This put it as lower than&nbsp; MorbiiUs, which was still kind of coming off the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:27] back of the pandemic. With a production budget&nbsp; of $186 million, early projections estimate&nbsp;&nbsp; it'll probably lose between $85 to $125 million.&nbsp; Now, in the aftermath of it, one of the biggest&nbsp;&nbsp; criticisms around the film was the needle drop&nbsp; at the end. Gillespie even came out and said they&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:43] tried 45 different songs and that James Gun had&nbsp; the final choice. This kind of gave a hint that&nbsp;&nbsp; there might be some internal creative clashes and&nbsp; some studio interference during post-prouction. If&nbsp;&nbsp; you've been keeping up to date with the film, then&nbsp; you'll probably have heard that it had over four&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:58] official test screenings, but there were rumored&nbsp; to be more. Apparently, there was at least eight,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is a hell of a lot more than most movies&nbsp; tend to get. The film ended up going through&nbsp;&nbsp; three composers as well, and there was also&nbsp; 25 minutes cut from the film. So, it did seem&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:13] like it was all happening again. The article then&nbsp; kind of goes beyond that and talks about how they&nbsp;&nbsp; had a bake off between competing cuts. The studio&nbsp; are clearly a bit dismayed by things in general,&nbsp;&nbsp; and Peter Saffron has even come out and said that&nbsp; though the film flopped, they're still confident&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:27] the article, why this stuff happens a lot more&nbsp; than you'd think, and overall the position it&nbsp;&nbsp; leaves DC in, especially with a Paramount merger&nbsp; looming on the horizon. Now, in Gun's defense,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:42] a studio overseeing things and making changes to&nbsp; bring a film to be more tonally like the rest of&nbsp;&nbsp; the franchise is not unheard of. In fact, Marvel&nbsp; Studios basically built their entire production&nbsp;&nbsp; line around the idea of fixing things in post. the&nbsp; way they shoot films is that they'll go and make&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:56] it, Feige will then watch it, give notes, and then&nbsp; they'll go and reshoot scenes to fix or change&nbsp;&nbsp; issues with the film. When the movie comes out and&nbsp; does, well, yeah, no one gives a [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] In fact,&nbsp;&nbsp; it makes Feige seem like a creative genius because&nbsp; he's basically the man that steers everything&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:11] towards success. People not caring about&nbsp; production issues if filmed as well is something&nbsp;&nbsp; that we've seen throughout cinema history. Poor&nbsp; Exampler. Apocalypse Now was a nightmare behind&nbsp;&nbsp; the scenes and everyone thought it was going to&nbsp; be an absolute mess. Jaws notoriously had a very,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:27] very, very troubled production as well. And&nbsp; even Star Wars was just a [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] show behind the&nbsp;&nbsp; scenes. Apparently, Tom Hardy has even admitted&nbsp; that when it came to making Fury Road, he thought&nbsp;&nbsp; it was going to be a disaster. How about all those&nbsp; movies came out and were beloved and therefore&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:41] nobody cared. That was a [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] nightmare to work&nbsp; on. However, if a movie comes out and it's bad or&nbsp;&nbsp; bombs, then obviously, you know, things are put&nbsp; under scrutiny. Marvel made their movies that way&nbsp;&nbsp; for years and years and years, but we only really&nbsp; started learning about it once the project started&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:57] doing badly and things were brought into question.&nbsp; So, that's what this article is doing. It details&nbsp;&nbsp; the aftermath of the production and says that&nbsp; filming wrapped in May 2025. Things were then&nbsp;&nbsp; put together and unfortunately by December 2025,&nbsp; the first test screenings yielded only just okay&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:13] results. multiple additional screenings and&nbsp; followed in February and March 2026. Scores&nbsp;&nbsp; hovered in the 60s initially and improved only to&nbsp; the low 70s at best. This isn't good at all and&nbsp;&nbsp; Batgirl actually scored in the same numbers before&nbsp; being completely put to pasture. It's far from&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:28] the robust numbers that studios like to see for a&nbsp; summer tent poll. So in March that quote unquote&nbsp;&nbsp; bake off happened. This pitted Gillespie's cut&nbsp; against the studio one and the formers was roughly&nbsp;&nbsp; 11 minutes longer with more of an emphasis on the&nbsp; villain creme. The studio cut one though by a slim&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:44] two points which is pretty negligible and I think&nbsp; you could have possibly shown it to a different&nbsp;&nbsp; audience and Gillespie's cut may have come out&nbsp; on top. May not have happened but either way the&nbsp;&nbsp; margins are very very thin and yeah it's not a&nbsp; decisive victory. However, that cut was praised&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:59] for its better pacing, song choices and overall&nbsp; flow. Gillespiey's version reportedly excelled&nbsp;&nbsp; in certain scenes and music cues but that was&nbsp; ultimately sidelined. Apparently, in the aftermath&nbsp;&nbsp; of this, post-production became a battleground.&nbsp; And DC apparently brought in writer Jeremy Slater,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:13] who'd worked with gun before on projects like&nbsp; Peacemaker. Gun is also known to have written&nbsp;&nbsp; the scenes with Superman as well, which yeah,&nbsp; personally, I think are some of the strongest&nbsp;&nbsp; parts of the movie. But this then led to nine days&nbsp; of re-shoots. However, there was apparently more&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:26] friction in the editing room. Two editors worked&nbsp; on the film with these being Tatiana Srigirl,&nbsp;&nbsp; who'd actually worked with Gillespie on Ita and&nbsp; Kruella. In the studios corner was none other&nbsp;&nbsp; than Fred Raskin who'd worked with Gun ever since&nbsp; Guardians of the Galaxy I believe. Now these then&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:41] shaped the film and it's Gun's tone and creative&nbsp; choices that apparently then proved to be pretty&nbsp;&nbsp; contentious. Gun is of course renowned for&nbsp; his needle drops with that basically being his&nbsp;&nbsp; signature style. Reportedly he pushed for a cover&nbsp; of Cindy Looper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:57] but this was later abandoned in favor of a cover&nbsp; of the middle by Jimmy Eorld. This is of course&nbsp;&nbsp; where the biggest stunk on social media seems to&nbsp; have come from with many saying it's the worst&nbsp;&nbsp; needle drop of all time, but I still stand by&nbsp; the pit bull one in Aquaman. As for the best,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:12] that is of course the have sex song in Mobius&nbsp; where Matt Smith dances about me. You'll [&nbsp;__&nbsp;]&nbsp;&nbsp; love that song. Who doesn't love that bit? That&nbsp; is a 10 out of 10 movie because of that scene.&nbsp;&nbsp; But yeah, there were a number of notes um lots of&nbsp; competing cuts and it basically signaled that the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:27] studio wasn't confident at all in what they were&nbsp; putting out. Now, why this has drawn such eye on&nbsp;&nbsp; social media is because Gun previously put out&nbsp; that he'd allow filmmakers the freedom to bring&nbsp;&nbsp; their visions to life. But this report makes it&nbsp; seem like the new DC is the same as the old DC.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:43] I think Gun is obviously, you know, a director&nbsp; with a certain style that you can see right away.&nbsp;&nbsp; Whether you like it or not, I think everyone knows&nbsp; his projects are typically about a messy rag tag&nbsp;&nbsp; group of anti-heroes that come together to form&nbsp; a quote unquote family. Whether it's Guardians&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:58] of the Galaxy, Creature Commando, Suicide Squad,&nbsp; Peacemaker, even the script he did for the Dawn&nbsp;&nbsp; of the Dead remake, blah blah blah, you get&nbsp; it. Superman did seem like it would be totally&nbsp;&nbsp; different and focused on just one character, but&nbsp; even that ended up just bringing the Justice Gang.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:13] I even remember when the Supergirl trailer dropped&nbsp; and I was saying that I don't know how many more&nbsp;&nbsp; Guardians of the Galaxy style movies I can do and&nbsp; that I don't think that tone works for everything,&nbsp;&nbsp; which I got a lot of flack for. But yeah,&nbsp; if you like it, you know, it's great. But&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:26] I think if you have a creative that makes a lot&nbsp; of the same creative choices, overseeing things&nbsp;&nbsp; with someone who isn't necessarily that kind&nbsp; of director, it's going to cause issues and&nbsp;&nbsp; ultimately the person in charge is the one who's&nbsp; going to decide what goes out and have the most&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:40] influence. Again, I do think Gun makes good films&nbsp; when he's doing what he loves, which are these&nbsp;&nbsp; offbeat characters that the director can really&nbsp; tackle. I think other than Superman, for for me,&nbsp;&nbsp; he's done some really fantastic films and when&nbsp; he's doing what he does best, it's it's difficult&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:55] to fault him. to me anyway. But his stuff is&nbsp; very very niche and I'm not sure if it's how&nbsp;&nbsp; you build a strong foundation. It is still like a&nbsp; bit crazy to me that Supergirl was the second film&nbsp;&nbsp; cuz I think that's like one of those projects&nbsp; that you save for like movie 10 at least. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:11] if you watched our last video, then I am going to&nbsp; sound like a basic [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] again. Uh but I think&nbsp;&nbsp; the follow-up film that you do to Superman is none&nbsp; other than Batman. Every Batman movie without fail&nbsp;&nbsp; makes at least like $600 million at least. Uh,&nbsp; and you do that and you have a strong second&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:28] film at the very least that you can then kind of&nbsp; use to tease what's coming down the line. Be like,&nbsp;&nbsp; he could be meeting Superman in the next one.&nbsp; And then you've got like two strong characters,&nbsp;&nbsp; strong films, and strong pillars of the universe.&nbsp; Third film could then lead into a Wonder Woman&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:42] film. And then at the end of that, you tease her,&nbsp; Superman, and Batman meeting. But that's not what&nbsp;&nbsp; they're doing. And I'm not sure if these projects&nbsp; really feel aligned and that they're building to&nbsp;&nbsp; something. even like skipping out in a postredit&nbsp; scene like what the what the [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] are you go&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:57] what are you doing like tease the next one sell&nbsp; the next one already instead though I think they&nbsp;&nbsp; all just feel like disconnected characters that&nbsp; exist in the same universe you know will bump into&nbsp;&nbsp; each other but they're not going to build towards&nbsp; anything that's sort of what we had in the DCU&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:11] before this as well like after Justice League and&nbsp; you had like Birds of Prey Shazam Aquaman 2 you&nbsp;&nbsp; know Wonder Woman 84 they were all in the same&nbsp; universe you might see one of those characters&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:23] pop up in another film, but it didn't really feel&nbsp; like we were building towards an event. And yeah,&nbsp;&nbsp; looking at what the DCU is doing next, I don't&nbsp; know if Clayface is going to really change&nbsp;&nbsp; things. Look, hasn't been released yet, so maybe&nbsp; it will. But we do know that that screenplay has&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:37] gone through revisions as well. And Mike Flanigan&nbsp; has said he's not sure what they're doing. It's&nbsp;&nbsp; kind of been taken off him, but he does hope that&nbsp; audiences will enjoy it. So, yeah, even that we&nbsp;&nbsp; heard was like an amazing script, but they're&nbsp; still working on stuff, which is a normal, I&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:50] suppose. Um, but say Clayface is wellreceived. I'm&nbsp; not sure how much it's going to move the needle in&nbsp;&nbsp; terms of building towards a big shared universe.&nbsp; Like I could make the best Seventh Seal analysis&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:02] of all time, mate, but people probably aren't&nbsp; going to watch it. So, I'm going to have to make&nbsp;&nbsp; something popular alongside that, like a House of&nbsp; the Dragon or a big TV show. Um, but it just seems&nbsp;&nbsp; like DC like begrudgingly doing these popular&nbsp; characters and guns more focused on doing like&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:19] Creature Commando season 2. Supergirl has never&nbsp; had a hit film. Her first film flopped and then&nbsp;&nbsp; the Flash flopped. So, it's like why are you using&nbsp; her to make the second movie? I think Marvel have&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:31] also seen the writing on the wall as well post&nbsp; Endgame and have realized that they need these&nbsp;&nbsp; big events to fill seats which is why they've gone&nbsp; all in on Doomsday. they're no longer continuing&nbsp;&nbsp; down the road they were down. And the worst thing&nbsp; is is that DC should have been able to see this&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:45] as well and not make the same mistakes. All you&nbsp; have to do is look at your competition and see&nbsp;&nbsp; how badly their films have performed when it's not&nbsp; a bigname character and simply adjust for that. I&nbsp;&nbsp; think obviously Gun has struggled with Matt Reeves&nbsp; as Batman being out there too. And though they're&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:59] downplaying it and saying it's fine, I think&nbsp; anyone with a brain can realize why it might&nbsp;&nbsp; be a bit difficult to have two competing Batman&nbsp; films out at once. Spider-Man gets away with it&nbsp;&nbsp; with Miles Morales because it's it's an animated&nbsp; movie and built around the multiverse, but I think&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:14] in the case of Batman, there may be issues that&nbsp; they aren't really talking about. Obviously,&nbsp;&nbsp; you know, The Flash did it, too, but again, built&nbsp; around the multiverse. But either way, I think&nbsp;&nbsp; these reports cement the long-standing problems&nbsp; at DC and Warner Brothers. They have pretty high&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:28] budgets for mid-tier characters that aren't&nbsp; really a draw to go and see. Captain Marvel,&nbsp;&nbsp; you know, can make a billion when it's between&nbsp; Infinity War and Endgame, but DC just don't have&nbsp;&nbsp; an event like that to really draw people in. And&nbsp; we saw what happened with the Marvels when it was&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:43] just kind of just kind of in the ether. Even the&nbsp; X-Men teaser cannot save you. Personally though,&nbsp;&nbsp; I think DC's strategy of elevating lesserknown&nbsp; characters before creating universe we care&nbsp;&nbsp; about itself is always going to cause these kind&nbsp; of issues. Even just the fact they've announced&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:59] like a missed a terrific series in development and&nbsp; a Jimmy Olsen comedic mockumentary makes me think&nbsp;&nbsp; they don't understand what people will rush out to&nbsp; go and watch. These projects still cost hundreds&nbsp;&nbsp; of millions of dollars. And I think Paramount will&nbsp; just be like, why aren't we using this money to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:14] make a Batman movie? Like if you were an investor&nbsp; mate and you had millions of dollars on the table,&nbsp;&nbsp; ask yourself, would you put it on a Batman movie&nbsp; or a Jimmy Olsen mockumentary TV show? I mean,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:26] it's obvious, isn't it? The viewing figures&nbsp; tell a grim story, too, with Peacemaker season&nbsp;&nbsp; 2 having low viewership and Supergirl's&nbsp; second weekend being really bad as well,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is made worse by the fact that it's also a&nbsp; holiday weekend and people should be going to the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:38] cinema. plunging between a 74 to 80% drop. This&nbsp; puts it amongst the ranks of the worst drop offs&nbsp;&nbsp; for a comic book film in history. The interest has&nbsp; evaporated quickly due to poor word of mouth and&nbsp;&nbsp; a lack of interest in general. Beyond that, they&nbsp; also have the fact that kids these days just do&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:54] not care about this stuff. An unnamed studio head&nbsp; even apparently bluntly told THR, "Gen Z does not&nbsp;&nbsp; care about superhero movies. That genre belongs&nbsp; to the millennials, those old [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] bitches."&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:07] And to be fair, I can totally understand why. Like&nbsp; if you count um the X-Men is part of the MCU now,&nbsp;&nbsp; which they they basically are cuz yeah, Hugh&nbsp; Jackman's in the movies, then these franchises are&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:19] basically older than most of them have been alive.&nbsp; It's kind of like their dads and grandparents&nbsp;&nbsp; movies. I remember being a kid as well. Um and my&nbsp; grandmother was always like, I love cowboys and&nbsp;&nbsp; Indians. Probably can't say that now. Granddad&nbsp; used to say that Native Americans used to go,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:34] I love cowboy and Indian movies. and I just&nbsp; never got into it. Looking back at the Western,&nbsp;&nbsp; there was like millions and millions and millions&nbsp; of those movies. Well, not millions, but a lot of&nbsp;&nbsp; movies. Uh, and I just didn't care. I think that's&nbsp; a similar thing to what's happening here. And we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:48] see this across the board with music, um, film,&nbsp; TV shows, and everything. The whole point of being&nbsp;&nbsp; a teenager is you rebel against what your parents&nbsp; like. So, I I just don't know if they've got that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:00] interest. Plus, like you've got to watching&nbsp; catch up on like 300 projects at this point,&nbsp;&nbsp; and it just it's a bit overwhelming. Audience&nbsp; polling and exit data from Supergirl also&nbsp;&nbsp; reportedly reflected this demographic disconnect.&nbsp; Now, the June release timing also pit the film&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:15] against three strong contenders. Those were Toy&nbsp; Story 5 and Obsession and back rooms. They were&nbsp;&nbsp; aimed towards more smaller core audiences&nbsp; like families, uh, Gen Z, horror lovers,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:28] smaller people with smaller groups, sorry. Um,&nbsp; rather than trying to be like everyone should&nbsp;&nbsp; come see this movie like most superhero films do.&nbsp; I do also wonder if Gun's hands are a bit full as&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:40] well. His dual role as a filmmaker and CEO must&nbsp; be an absolute nightmare. And no modern president&nbsp;&nbsp; exists for someone balancing hands-on directing&nbsp; with overseeing an entire slate, especially at&nbsp;&nbsp; this scale. The guy writes his own scripts, is&nbsp; heavily involved with casting, editing, and then&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:56] promoting the films as well. Plus, if he's getting&nbsp; involved doing all that stuff on Supergirl, too,&nbsp;&nbsp; it's going to be a lot of spinning plates. He&nbsp; has to have a hand on the business side, too. And&nbsp;&nbsp; yeah, when he's picking what projects to announce,&nbsp; reading scripts and stuff, it's mental he can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:11] even do it. Like I used to do everything at the&nbsp; channel. Uh but even now I've hit a point where&nbsp;&nbsp; I just cannot have a hand on everything and this&nbsp; is a small YouTube channel. I just don't know how&nbsp;&nbsp; many people are built for that level of pressure.&nbsp; So obviously the quality is going to suffer. Now&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:26] looming over everything. The dreaded beast on&nbsp; the horizon is the massive acquisition of Warner&nbsp;&nbsp; Brothers by Paramount. The THR article explicitly&nbsp; flags the anxieties of this as being a major&nbsp;&nbsp; challenge alongside Supergirl's failure. Corporate&nbsp; uncertainty often leads to risk averse decisions&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:42] and you can get budget cuts or leadership&nbsp; shakeups. Articles like this don't help either.&nbsp;&nbsp; And any exec looking to push Gun out will be able&nbsp; to point out the performances so far and things&nbsp;&nbsp; like this to lay home their point. Honestly, I&nbsp; also think Gun was a bit stupid going after the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:58] trades. You might have remembered uh they did&nbsp; a report where they were like Adria or Jonah&nbsp;&nbsp; um and a couple of others are in the running for&nbsp; a role in Man of Tomorrow. and rather than just&nbsp;&nbsp; not responding, he said it was fake and debunked&nbsp; it. The trades even had to back each other up,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:13] and it looked dumb when she was announced as being&nbsp; in the film a couple days later. Let's be honest,&nbsp;&nbsp; mate, journalists are petty, and I think the&nbsp; trades are probably going to be out for him now,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is how reports like this end up&nbsp; materializing in the first place. So,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:26] you could have the media against him and if&nbsp; the money and audience on there, Ellison could&nbsp;&nbsp; prioritize different strategies when it comes to&nbsp; HBO Max integrating with Paramount Plus. due to&nbsp;&nbsp; the return on the last 15 DC films as well. He&nbsp; might even question the viability of expensive&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:41] superhero projects when they really don't have to&nbsp; make them. Historically, mergers and acquisitions&nbsp;&nbsp; disrupts creative pipelines and executives&nbsp; focus on integration rather than bull bets,&nbsp;&nbsp; which is what Gun basically likes to do.&nbsp; He's shown numerous times he likes to take&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:56] less established characters. And because of&nbsp; that, I just can't see them jelling. even if&nbsp;&nbsp; the stuff they're putting out to the public says&nbsp; they're invested in the direction DC are going.&nbsp;&nbsp; So while Gun is stifling filmmakers creativity&nbsp; in terms of Gillespie, he could be getting his&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:11] own creativity stifled too. Unfortunately, the&nbsp; Supergirl saga feels depressingly familiar.&nbsp;&nbsp; And we have a studio repeating patterns that&nbsp; have damaged DC and Warner Brothers for over a&nbsp;&nbsp; decade. What we've seen time and time again is a&nbsp; studio storming ahead with no real plan in sight&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:26] and then getting poor test scores and completely&nbsp; [&nbsp;__&nbsp;] the bed. Batgirl was cancelled because of&nbsp;&nbsp; them. Shazam 2 got mediocre ones as well and was&nbsp; then reworked. Snider's films, a Suicide Squad,&nbsp;&nbsp; they all had this over reliance on test scores to&nbsp; dictate creative decisions and push the direction.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:45] Uh, which led to them trying to fix things in&nbsp; post and it just was a total mess. Director's&nbsp;&nbsp; vision was completely compromised and in the end&nbsp; it led to an underwhelming release. When the hero&nbsp;&nbsp; isn't a bankable name as well, I think you're&nbsp; just asking for trouble. You're putting the cop&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:01] before the horse in general and just rolling into&nbsp; production on this stuff and asking if you can&nbsp;&nbsp; make it without even asking if you should. It just&nbsp; repeats the era of prioritizing release schedules&nbsp;&nbsp; and corporate momentum over quality and if people&nbsp; even care. Hell, if you go back to the original&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:16] DCU announcement, uh it's it's mental how many&nbsp; of those projects haven't come to fruition. Woah!&nbsp;&nbsp; Booster Gold, Paradise Lost, The Brave and the&nbsp; Bold, Booster Gold again properly. The Authority,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:28] none of them being made. They're all nowhere to&nbsp; be seen while other characters are being announced&nbsp;&nbsp; because they seem to have resonated with people.&nbsp; But how big is the audience? Let's be real,&nbsp;&nbsp; though. That's why Mr. Terrific and Olsen are&nbsp; getting stuff. It's because they were in Superman&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:42] and people liked them and responded to them. But&nbsp; the plan is already totally different. And it's&nbsp;&nbsp; like what was the point of announcing this stuff&nbsp; in the first place? I think they're just desperate&nbsp;&nbsp; to try and build something without having any&nbsp; idea what audiences actually want them to build,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:56] what Gun wants, and also what the studio wants.&nbsp; In essence, they're just repeating the cycles of&nbsp;&nbsp; hype followed by creative compromise, audience&nbsp; rejection, and external corporate pressures,&nbsp;&nbsp; which undermines the very reason that gun was&nbsp; hired to come in and reset things. The article&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:12] does try and hammer home as well that despite the&nbsp; setbacks, the DC core strategy remains intact in&nbsp;&nbsp; that they'll build out lesserknown characters. But&nbsp; I just don't know whether audiences will invest&nbsp;&nbsp; in this wider universe if their flagship entries&nbsp; are faltering. It's even been announced that Gun's&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:26] contract could be up as early as this year. And&nbsp; if he's out then, then it's going to be exhausting&nbsp;&nbsp; for fans to see new leadership come once more. But&nbsp; then I also don't know what else the higherups can&nbsp;&nbsp; do as they I don't know if they can continue on&nbsp; this path. The studio cannot afford to keep losing&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:42] hundreds of millions of dollars every single&nbsp; release. So I feel like the hierarchy of power&nbsp;&nbsp; is about to change again. However, in doing that,&nbsp; the cycle is just going to keep happening. I think&nbsp;&nbsp; this report will also put off other directors from&nbsp; working with DC as well because no one wants to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:56] come in and have their vision compromised and then&nbsp; for the studio to throw them under the bus. You&nbsp;&nbsp; might remember that Gun said they'd spoken to Ben&nbsp; Affleck about directing for the studio and he said&nbsp;&nbsp; he wasn't really interested in doing what they&nbsp; were doing. So, I don't know if this is going to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[21:09] encourage more people to get involved. And yeah,&nbsp; I'm just kind of burned out by the whole thing,&nbsp;&nbsp; and I hope we don't end up in 2037 in the&nbsp; exact same position as we are now. Anyway,&nbsp;&nbsp; let me know your thoughts below. Um, I don't know&nbsp; how often I'm going to do these kinds of videos. I&nbsp;&nbsp;
[21:24] just saw that report, made sense to build off last&nbsp; week's video, and yeah, crazy that we're kind of&nbsp;&nbsp; going through it all again, but hope to see you&nbsp; on the next one. And please hit the thumbs up and&nbsp;&nbsp; this video, too. I've been your host, Paul. You've&nbsp; been the best, and I'll see you in the next one.