Justice League (2017)

[Racj82]

20 hours ago, Dani said:

Very true and this isn’t all his bad moments being exposed at the same time. This is him being exposed for what he has done to those with some degree of power and influence in his industry. If he threatens the career of Gal Gadot the stunt double who ultimately did the boob face plant scene probably had it a lot worse and she didn’t have the power to stand her ground. If he pressured Charisma Carpenters career because she got pregnant how did he react to the random assistant who needed maternity leave. Those are the stories we may never here because they have zero real protection in the industry. 

This is the stretching that I can't get with.

I've noticed that Joss at his worst is all about people fucking with his vision or his power as showrunner. Sure he could be a prick to all involved. But there has been nothing to make that leap. 

But, with Ray, Charisma, Gal, James (Spike) and others it's has all been about questioning him or messing with his vision. 

Gal and Ray were pushing back against changes Joss made and he has zero time for that. His way or the highway.

With Charisma, all he was thinking about was how the pregnancy screws up his stories and not her as a human being.

He also had a issue with James becoming a fan favorite as Spike and confronted the actor about it because that wasn't what he wanted. James didn't care either way and blew it off but this is the throughline. 

So I really don't think he had these types of issues with the regular day to day people. 

And the things is, in a bubble, I could see being pissed off about all these things as a creator.

He was under enormous pressure for the Justice League.

It has to be really aggravating to have your show be forced to change course through no fault of your own.

The problem is that he's so a grown fucking adult that needed to learn years ago how to handle himself, treat ALL his actors like human beings and get off the fucking power trips.

There are multiple issues between actor and creator throughout time. Some way more heated or vile than any of this. 

That isn't me condoning anything. It's me being happy that this type of behavior is being called out.

Whedon needs to do a ton of work on himself and studios needs to stop giving people a pass or protecting people because they make them money. 

[Hiyo]

Lots of people have to deal with shit while being showrunners, and not all of them are raging assholes like Joss.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Racj82 said:

This is the stretching that I can't get with.

 

It’s not stretching anything. There are reports from people on all levels. A SMG stunt double said she quit after Whedon told her to dump her boyfriend or quit the show. A writer said that he enjoyed making female writers cry. Multiple have called him “casually cruel”.  That type of behavior does not limit itself to creative issues. 
Michelle Tratenberg wasn’t allowed to be alone with him. I really doubt that she challenged his creative vision. He’s just a bully and bullies bully those with less power. 

[Racj82]

4 minutes ago, Dani said:

It’s not stretching anything. There are reports from people on all levels. A SMG stunt double said she quit after Whedon told her to dump her boyfriend or quit the show. A writer said that he enjoyed making female writers cry. Multiple have called him “casually cruel”.  That type of behavior does not limit itself to creative issues. 
Michelle Tratenberg wasn’t allowed to be alone with him. I really doubt that she challenged his creative vision. He’s just a bully and bullies bully those with less power. 

Ah, I see. I hadn't heard or read about the non star related stuff.

And Michelle could have totally messed with his plans if she wasn't playing the character right.

Obviously, again, not condoning anything. 

He doesn't seem to like being challenged at all which is funny as with his huge feminist spin he put on his career.

Still love a lot of what he did creatively but it was clearly built on a foundation of lies.

[Racj82]

25 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

Lots of people have to deal with shit while being showrunners, and not all of them are raging assholes like Joss.

Which is why I said this had happened before but not always the same way. Sometimes to a lesser extent and sometimes worse. And you see a lot of it was excused away as stress on both sides but thankfully these things are being explored more often now. I think of that huge onset argument with Lilly Tomlin and a director that was recorded. He said some vile shit to her. They both gave it to one another but it was excused more at the time. It's time that shitty behavior or shitty people stop being protected.

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, Racj82 said:

And Michelle could have totally messed with his plans if she wasn't playing the character right.

My main point is that if he had so little control of himself to not abuse a child in that situation it is hard to believe that random employees didn’t incur his wrath.

The thing with James is the perfect example because he didn’t do anything but be liked by the audience. Joss was pissed by the audiences interpretation of the show and chose to take it out on the actor who was just doing to job. When telling the story James said that Whedon wasn’t mad at him but was angry at the situation. People like that take their anger out on anyone unfortunate enough to be around. 

Edited May 10, 2021 by Guest

[Hiyo]

“And you see a lot of it was excused away as stress on both sides but thankfully these things are being explored more often now.”

In the case of Joss Whedon the other side doesn’t need to be excused since the other side didn’t do anything to warrant the way they were treated by him.

[Racj82]

1 hour ago, Hiyo said:

“And you see a lot of it was excused away as stress on both sides but thankfully these things are being explored more often now.”

In the case of Joss Whedon the other side doesn’t need to be excused since the other side didn’t do anything to warrant the way they were treated by him.

It doesn't really matter. There was never a reason to excuse anyway. Which was my point. 

[Hiyo]

Actually, it does.

Saying things like "stress on both sides", "at his worst is all about people fucking with his vision or his power as showrunner", "questioning him or messing with his vision", "messed with his plans if she wasn't playing the character right", etc, seems to imply that he was provoked into acting the way he did by the people he abused. Which, as far I am concerned (others might disagree) does not excuse or justify or explain how he in turn reacted. At all.

[Racj82]

2 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Actually, it does.

Saying things like "stress on both sides", "at his worst is all about people fucking with his vision or his power as showrunner", "questioning him or messing with his vision", "messed with his plans if she wasn't playing the character right", etc, seems to imply that he was provoked into acting the way he did by the people he abused. Which, as far I am concerned (others might disagree) does not excuse or justify or explain how he in turn reacted. At all.

Again, my point is that there was never an excuse for the behavior in the first place. We all have to deal with stress. Creators have to deal with different issues and hurdles while turning out product. It doesn't give him or anyone else a pass. But, you can keep singling out some of my words and not all of them if you like.

I can acknowledge that there might have been reasons why Joss was upset while also making it clear that it gave him no right to treat people the way he did.

It's like police officers who shoot suspects incorrectly and it gets excused away with rhetoric like he or she was stressed. Being a cop is a stressful job. It was a nerve racking situation. 

If you can't handle a stressful situation without freaking out, behaving logically or being a decent human being, than that job isn't the job for you.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Racj82 said:

Again, my point is that there was never an excuse for the behavior in the first place. We all have to deal with stress. Creators have to deal with different issues and hurdles while turning out product. It doesn't give him or anyone else a pass. But, you can keep singling out some of my words and not all of them if you like.

I can acknowledge that there might have been reasons why Joss was upset while also making it clear that it gave him no right to treat people the way he did.

It's like police officers who shoot suspects incorrectly and it gets excused away with rhetoric like he or she was stressed. Being a cop is a stressful job. It was a nerve racking situation. 

If you can't handle a stressful situation without freaking out, behaving logically or being a decent human being, than that job isn't the job for you.

I think the dangerous thing about trying to rationalize in that manner is that it raises the standard of proof and requires more people to come forward. One or two accounts can be rationalized making life hell for the first accusers and silencing other voices. For example Ray was often written off as bitter and difficult until a wave of others spoke up. The same was true for Whedon’s ex-wife and Charisma Carpenter 10+ years ago. 
The most public accusations against Whedon cover 2 decades and still there’s the desire to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah It was wrong but it was only people who _____ puts victims of the defense even if that’s not the intention. 

[Bruinsfan]

To me it effectively reads as "Joss only intimidated and abused employees who had their own minds and dared not to agree with everything he said, he wasn't running up and screaming at random passers-by on the street for no reason." Gee, I'm sure his humanitarian awards are in the mail.

[Door County Cherry]

Please move on from the discussion of Joss Whedon unless it's specifically related to Justice League.

 

[shrewd.buddha]

Back to the topic of Zach Snyder's Justice League on HBOMax ..
 Has there been any conclusive decision as to whether it was a success or not? 

Edited May 11, 2021 by shrewd.buddha

[Hiyo]

No, and I’m not sure there ever will be.

[Racj82]

7 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

Back to the topic of Zach Snyder's Justice League on HBOMax ..
 Has there been any conclusive decision as to whether it was a success or not? 

Its hard to tell. There are reports that it did huge streaming numbers but the people that don't want the Snyder verse to continue behind the scenes are trying to bury that fact.

It's clear it did well but I don't think it changed any minds on whether or not to continue with this continuity.

[Bruinsfan]

Did those reports come from the Release the Snyder Cut bros? I thought HBO Max was counting on that release as a tentpole for drawing new subscribers to the service. Seems unlikely they would downplay its success.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bruinsfan said:

Did those reports come from the Release the Snyder Cut bros? I thought HBO Max was counting on that release as a tentpole for drawing new subscribers to the service. Seems unlikely they would downplay its success.

Of course. Their reasoning is that WB doesn’t want to admit it’s a success because they don’t want to #RestoreTheSnyderverse. The “evidence” is really flimsy. The only numbers available were good but nothing that impressive. 

I think HBO Max stopped viewing it as a tentpole once they decided to release their 2021 slate on HBO Max. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Guest

[Racj82]

It wasn't just Snyder Bros but you know they were part of it.

Yeah, it really seems like there was an initial big jump but it tapered off. 

Wonder Woman and Godzilla vs  Kong seem to be their two legit hits when it comes to the WB release schedule.

Mortal Kombat did pretty well too.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Racj82 said:

Wonder Woman and Godzilla vs  Kong seem to be their two legit hits when it comes to the WB release schedule.

Mortal Kombat did pretty well too.

Based on the information available I would say WW84 did well but nothing spectacular. GvK and Mortal Kombat both performed really well for HBO Max.  

[Racj82]

2 minutes ago, Dani said:

Based on the information available I would say WW84 did well but nothing spectacular. GvK and Mortal Kombat both performed really well for HBO Max.  

WM84 did numbers out the gate that are still measured against. It did huge numbers. There were certain numbers that the Snyder cut couldn't beat in comparison to Wm84.

It could be people starved for a blockbuster back in December. But, it helped double the subscriber count and did groundbreaking streaming numbers out the gate.

"Samba TV reports that 1.8M HBO Max households tuned in for at least five minutes to Zack Snyder’s Justice League over its premiere time frame of March 18-21.

That figure ranks behind the 2.2M U.S. households who watched Wonder Woman 1984 on the streamer over Dec. 25-27.

Samba TV polls terrestrial smart TVs. Separately, insiders have informed us that the four-hour-plus Snyder cut was massive, yet slotted behind Wonder Woman 1984."

In general, the WB streaming gambit is doing well in total viewers at least.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, Racj82 said:

WM84 did numbers out the gate that are still measured against. It did huge numbers. There were certain numbers that the Snyder cut couldn't beat in comparison to Wm84.

Isn’t that really just because it was the first? Samba had Godzilla vs. Kong with 3.6 M opening weekend and Mortal Kombat with 3.8M. 

 

[Racj82]

54 minutes ago, Dani said:

Isn’t that really just because it was the first? Samba had Godzilla vs. Kong with 3.6 M opening weekend and Mortal Kombat with 3.8M. 

 

I basically said that in post. The initial discussion was about the Snyder cuts success. It did well but has been beaten out the gate since. And people were starved for blockbusters in December.

The more interesting note in regards to the Snyder cut to me has always been how over 50 percent of people who started the Snyder cut struggled to finish it or didn't. That 4 hour cut is a huge hurdle for non die hard fans.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Racj82

[Racj82]

I love the latest factoid.

Oh my God! The Snyder cut has more streams than Endgame and they still won't continue the Snyderverse!

This actually being talked about right.

1. Imagine if Endgame been released on Disney plus during the pandemic.  Imagine that. The numbers would have been insane.

2. Everyone that wanted to see Endgame saw it in theaters already. Anyone streaming it now, is just for fun (for the most).

Some people will not let this stupid thing die. Take the victory. The Snyder cut was restored and it was a well received movie. Just be happy with that. Most people don't get this. A dead project stays dead.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Racj82 said:

I love the latest factoid.

Oh my God! The Snyder cut has more streams than Endgame and they still won't continue the Snyderverse!

This actually being talked about right.

1. Imagine if Endgame been released on Disney plus during the pandemic.  Imagine that. The numbers would have been insane.

2. Everyone that wanted to see Endgame saw it in theaters already. Anyone streaming it now, is just for fun (for the most).

Some people will not let this stupid thing die. Take the victory. The Snyder cut was restored and it was a well received movie. Just be happy with that. Most people don't get this. A dead project stays dead.

Even the people on r/DC_Cinematic are skeptical about those numbers. I really can’t believe 80 million more people have streamed the snydercut in China in a month than Endgame in over a year. 

[Bruinsfan]

If Endgame had first been released on Disney+ during the pandemic we'd all have gone stir crazy thanks to the whole internet collapsing under the strain of that many people streaming the same media all at once.

[MarkHB]

So, in the midst of burning all his bridges, Zack showed a glimpse of What Might Have Been: Wayne T. Carr as John Stewart

Apparently they filmed it, as they did most of the late pickup filming, in Zack's driveway. I don't know if the rendered version was Pre-Viz, or an actual first pass with the CGI before WB shut down the idea, or what. And if you're really into it, he also outlined what John's role would have been in the sequels.

[rmontro]

I just finished this on HBO Max.  I thought it was much better than the original version, although the four hours was pretty long, I spread it out over a few days.  It was almost like two movies.   

Still, I thought there was a lot to like, it definitely made me want to see more.  It wasn't perfect by any means, I thought Flash was a little too goofy, while the movie overall was too heavy handed.  "Some call me.....   Martian Manhunter".  I guess there's no good way to reveal that lol.

A big highlight for me was seeing the ancient Green Lantern in the fight against Darkseid.

[Hiyo]

Are people still trying to make restorethesnyderverse a thing? 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Are people still trying to make restorethesnyderverse a thing? 

Of course. They spent 2 and a half years spamming the internet with #ReleaseTheSnyderCut and won after being told repeatedly it didn’t exist. Why would they stop now?

[MarkHB]

I'm replying to the "Snyder-verse" conversation over to the DCEU thread.

[tv echo]

Another controversy..

Exclusive: Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army
A WarnerMedia report reveals that bots and other inauthentic users bolstered the fan-led campaign for director Zack Snyder’s Justice League do-over
By TATIANA SIEGEL    JULY 18, 2022
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/justice-league-the-snyder-cut-bots-fans-1384231/ 

Quote

And as the mayhem built, many insiders questioned how organic the SnyderVerse legion really was. According to two reports commissioned by WarnerMedia and recently obtained by Rolling Stone, at least 13 percent of the accounts that took part in the conversation about the Snyder Cut were deemed fake, well above the three to five percent that cyber experts say they typically see on any trending topic. (In public filings, Twitter has estimated that the percentage of daily active accounts on its platform that are “false or spam” is less than five percent.) So while Snyder had scores of authentic, flesh-and-blood fans, those real stans were amplified by a disproportionate number of bogus accounts.    

Two firms contacted by Rolling Stone that track the authenticity of social media campaigns, Q5id and Graphika, also spotted inauthentic activity coming from the SnyderVerse community. And yet another firm, Alethea Group, found that the forsnydercut.com domain — which claims to have made the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag go viral in May of 2018, and became the landing hub for efforts to bring Snyder back to the helm of the DC universe — was, at least at one point, registered to a person who also ran a now-defunct ad agency which promoted its ability to bring “cheap, instant Avatar traffic to your website.” 

Rolling Stone spoke with more than 20 people involved with both the original Justice League and Snyder’s cut, most of whom believe that the director was working to manipulate the ongoing campaign. Snyder claims that, “if anyone” was pulling strings on the social media fervor, it was Warner Bros. “trying to leverage my fan base to bolster subscribers to their new streaming service.” But one source maintains, “Zack was like a Lex Luthor wreaking havoc.” 
*  *  *
Wanta explains: “There are certain patterns that bots give off that we saw here. They arrive at almost the same time in huge numbers. And many times the origin of thousands or even millions of messages can be traced to a single source or two. Sometimes, they can be traced to unusual servers in remote countries. And their content will be precisely similar.” 

That means a fandom amplified by fake accounts helped shake down a major studio — at an ultimate cost to Warner Bros. of more than $100 million — to re-release a movie that had already bombed years earlier.

 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by tv echo

[Hiyo]

Why is none of this surprising (about the bots)?