"Justice League" Box-Office: What happened?! How DC and the WB messed up the DCEU.

Ok, so you're probably wondering how did things become so bad for the WB and the DCEU? In a nutshell, it's more complicated than the following 400 words thesis.

The WB was desperately in need of a franchise, The Dark Knight trilogy was done ditto Harry Potter and the Hobbit.  "Man of Steel" was made with the intent to be followed by a sequel, however, the WB decided to turn that sequel into the misbegotten "Batman vs Superman" and had that film launch their unprepared cinematic universe.  That same year, the WB interfered a lot with David Ayer's  "Suicide Squad," production rumors were swirling all around and, as you know, the film is now the stuff of cinematic infamy.

We all thought they had set-up a concrete cinematic universe by that point. Ten movies were announced, to be released from 2016 to 2020. Not even halfway through that slate of films, and banking on Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman" having surprise success at the Box-Office, the WB decided to have "Wonder Woman 2" released before "Flash" and "The Green Lantern." Not just that, they also decided to add in a slew of new projects in the span of 6 months: "Suicide Squad 2," "Justice League Dark," "The Batman," "Batgirl," "Gotham City Sirens," "Nightwing," "Man of Steel 2," "Black Adam," "Deadshot," "Lobo" "Deathstroke" and the untitled Joker and Harley Quinn film, produced by Martin Scorsese. Phew, suffice to say, the plans of a DCEU are all but fucked. In fact, there never really was a plan, they were changing their plan every month. They haven't even announced if Ben Affleck will return as Batman. They were supposed to rebuild around Affleck and now he may be done, with Jake Gyllenhaal being sought for the caped crusader role. That much anticipated "Flash" movie?  It's lost, multiple directors have quit or been fired. 

Who is to blame for all this? The WB of course, they set their sights on Zack Snyder to herald the DCEU forward, that didn't work so well. They wanted Avengers-sized success but didn’t want to put the time, effort, thought and resources into building it up in a thoughtfully conceived manner. At this point, my advice to them would be to do what they did with "Wonder Woman" and actually hire competent directors that have talent and that can put their own signature to the films. You might as well get on the critics good side because, and I do say this with the utmost confidence, I do believe bad reviews have contributed to this debacle.

15 Rare On-set photos of Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight"

I had read an interview  somewhere where Heath Ledger said he went to Jack Nicholson for advice on the Joker role, in that meeting Nicholson said that the best advice he could give him was not to get eaten by the role, that it was a powerful character and he could easily fall into its trap and get stuck in it, just like, supposedly, Jack himself almost did. Now, if anyone believes that that was what consumed and eventually killed Ledger is very much up for debate, but there's no denying that ledger was REALLY into his character.

Prior to production, Ledger locked himself in his hotel room for a month preparing for the role. During this stint of almost six weeks he wrote in a journal and practiced different voices for his character. In this creepy Journal, written during his time of isolation, there were in-character ramblings and inspirations. He also included photographs of hyenas, clown make-up designs, joker cards and even stills from A Clockwork Orange, which is a movie Nolan recommended Ledger watch to prepare for the Joker. Some of the writing contained in the journal was from the perspective of the Joker, including a list of suspicious things he thought were funny like AIDS, blind babies, landmines and smart people that suffer from brain damage (don't ask). On the cover, the words THE JOKER, with the picture of an elephant and a man on a checkered floor. The last page of the journal had the words “BYE BYE” handwritten in large letters.


Back in 2008 I wrote this about the movie and Ledger's performance:

"If you haven't heard of Christopher Nolan's soon-to-be classic "The Dark Knight" then you don't live on this planet or are completely oblivious to what's going on in pop culture. Nolan along with an A-list cast headlined by Christian Bale as Batman and the late Heath Ledger as the Joker make sure to to haunt your dreams with this movie. Many have evoked the film as a post-9/11 depiction of a world gone to hell. They might not be far off. Bale's caped crusader needs to lower himself to the depths of evil in order to make good triumph. As for Ledger's Joker, he feels so real and intense that you feel uncomfortable whenever he appears on-screen. It's one of the great movie performances of our time."


Here are 15 rare pictures of Ledger on the set of  "The Dark Knight."

[The Chive]
[Den of Geek]