Here's Some Much-Needed Good News About The Future of The DCEU Movies
It's an understatement to call Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice a divisive film. It's one of those "draw a line in the sand" movies where a lot of people feel the need to scream their opinions instead of having a calm conversation about the movie. While a segment of the population loves it, there are others — like myself — who did not like the film for a myriad of reasons, many of which you can read about here. One of the many things I didn't like was the dour tone of the movie; I understand (and agree) that not every superhero movie should have a light and breezy Guardians of the Galaxy-style tone, but there was no joy whatsoever in BVS, and precious few moments that lightened the otherwise constantly dark mood.
Many assumed Suicide Squad would change that, and BirthMoviesDeath has an interesting report about what's happening with that film. One of their sources told them that all of the film's jokes were in the most recent trailer, and that the actual film itself is a bit darker than the trailer might indicate. But Warner Bros. and DC heard the fan reaction to the humor and presumed lighter tone, so they've given the production tens of millions of dollars to do reshoots that are "adding humor and lightness into the film."
Hearing that WB is aware that they need to inject some fun into these movies - and that's what I'm hearing is happening here, not that they're inserting jokes left and right but that they're beefing up fun character moments and interactions - can only mean good things for the future of the DC Movieverse after the deadly serious, zero fun Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
That's definitely good news. Like I said before, I'm totally OK with these DC films having dark tones, but providing some levity here and there certainly won't kill those vibes and it should do wonders to keep the movies from feeling oppressively bleak.
Also worth noting from BMD's report is that they're hearing WB is going to be "much more involved" on Justice League than they were on BVS. To me, that could be both a good and bad thing. I'll give Zack Snyder the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't love the idea of stopping his movie in its tracks to introduce members of the Justice League in video snippets, so the studio's involvement might lead to more of those clunky, presumably-mandated moments to continue to set up future films. Then again, there might be a voice of reason at the studio that could keep the new movie from adopting the same tone and disrespect of the characters that caused fans to start an ill-fated petition to remove Snyder from directing Justice League altogether. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out, but it sounds like at least someone at the studio is aware of fan complaints about the gloominess of BVS and is working to lighten future movies up just a little bit.