SUICIDE SQUANDERED: COULD THE MISFIRING DC EU SPELL TROUBLE FOR COMIC BOOK MOVIES?

Amusingly, the latest addition to DC’s Extended Universe, Suicide Squad, has caused exactly the kind of chaos and mayhem the titular antagonist task force would be proud of. But it’s unlikely that its distributors, Warner Brothers, are laughing. The now infamously critically derided film has had a divisive audience response and is basically adding up to the third strike for DC Studios as their attempts to rival Marvel on the silver screen continue to falter. While its record-breaking August opening was no doubt a welcome headline, the rest of its newsworthy stories have proved to be otherwise. Controversy has abounded: from one over-hyped fan trying to shut down Rotten tomatoes via petition (which only succeeded in drawing even more attention to its very rotten rating of 27%) to the film’s supposedly lead star, Jared Leto, publicly slating producers for his minimal screen time as The Joker.

There’s also the not-so-small matter of the film’s exorbitant production, marketing and distribution costs, putting Suicide Squad on a collision course to be a financial flop in a market where established properties supposedly can’t fail. Despite grossing nearly half a billion dollars worldwide already, Suicide Squad is estimated to need to make at least $700 million to get into the black and normally a film of this magnitude would be eagerly anticipating its release in the coveted Chinese market to boost it’s gross by $100 million or so. Unfortunately for DC that the film will not be seeing a single Yen thanks to censors in China disapproving of the film’s themes and banning it, demonstrating yet again the lack of foresight that has plagued the launch of the DC EU.

And what with DC’s upcoming Wonder Woman film rumored to be just as much of a mess as the previous three DC EU films, this could well leave the Justice League film limping into theaters next year. It’s quite astonishing how much the DC EU has under-performed so far, especially in a genre that Warners were once the masters of.

“You wanna know how I got these scars?”

How things have changed in comic book land for Warner Brothers since 2008. Back then they released Christopher Nolan’s highly acclaimed and obsessively adored, The Dark Knight, and they lapped up all the praise and money they so richly deserved. So much so, that they probably didn’t pay much heed to a washed up film star flying around in a garish iron suit in theaters only a few months before in Marvel Studios debut production, Iron Man.

Fast forward to 2016, and Marvel Studios is now the proud owner of a thriving and beloved cinematic universe and that washed up film star is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. So enormous is Marvel’s financial success, that just the 6 films alone which feature Iron Man have grossed more than all the Batman and Superman films combined. It’s no wonder that Warner Brothers are prepared to take such huge financial risks to try to re-establish their iconic properties as the biggest box office draws, but perhaps they needed to be more willing to take risks with the DC Universe itself…

Marvel built their tent-pole formula on taking characters with barely any mass audience awareness, fleshed them out in a self-contained origin story; tantalized fans with post-credits scenes and easter eggs teasing them about what may come; and then unleashing a monster hit in The Avengers with all the characters ready to get on with spectacle and knowing quips galore. Many huge box office returns and critical acclaim followed as well as leaving fans and audiences consistently pleased.

Whereas, DC Studios have attempted to cash in on their legacy characters such as Superman, Batman, and The Joker (all of whom need no introduction to any modern audience members) in two seemingly unnecessary origin stories and one premature ensemble piece to try to win precious audience share. This approach has so far produced tolerable box office returns but has mainly wrought critical scorn, audience confusion, and fury from fans. All of which has been exasperated by DC’s apparent inability to handle the characters’ legacy in the first place with such missteps in their content like: John Williams’ synonymous theme being absent in Man of Steel; Bats and Supes end their 10-minute fist fight because their moms have the same name in Dawn of Justice; and the bafflingly small amount of screen time for The Joker in Suicide Squad after he had been the main selling point for Suicide Squad.

But perhaps most damaging of all is the neglectful attempts to build awareness of the lesser known DC characters within the first two DCEU films. This could leave the deepest scars on The Justice League film as it’s unlikely the much-needed Wonder Woman can fix this before November 2017. This would all be concerning enough in isolation, but in comparison to what the Marvel movies have achieved, it’s leaving DC and Warners desperate and ill-prepared to remain competitive in the comic book genre. 

“Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn”

And it’s not just the DC Universe that is suffering from Marvel’s dominance, ironically Marvel’s universe is too. Let’s not forget that two of Marvel’s most prized assets, Spiderman and the X-Men, are still owned by Sony and 20^th Century Fox respectively and both of those franchises aren’t looking too healthy with middling critics scores and diminishing box office returns for their most recent outings.

It would certainly make fiscal sense for Sony and Fox to sell the properties back to Marvel for a hefty price that parent company Disney would almost certainly pay, but in doing so they would lose their places in cinema’s most lucrative genre. Comic book films, especially those based on established characters, don’t just provide massive revenues of cash but also hold vast amounts of audience attention too. In the modern cinema economy, both are vital, especially with all other distributors trying to keep up with Disney, who currently have the top four grossing films of 2016.

So what, though? Surely, Marvel can keep fighting the good fight and let the others crash and burn around them? That may not be so easy for them if the comic book genre is perceived to be deteriorating in quality, and apparently, it is.

The average Rottentomatoes score for comic book films released over the last two years has fallen 11% to a “rotten” 53% compared to the “fresh” 64% average for the preceding two years. This can only serve to a growing overall audience perception that comic book films just aren’t what they used to be. And while it may be common knowledge for fans to know which characters’ stories are being told by which studios, audiences at large are not so well educated in such things and the good could easily become guilty by association in their eyes.

Okay, so let the fans enjoy the benefits of their awareness and let the uninitiated watch Frozen 2 or something instead, right? Maybe, and while box office averages are up for comic book films over the last two years by 10%, as we’ve seen from Suicide Squad’s huge investment that the more funds you have to put into these films, the harder it is to generate profit. So, studios are having to pour more extreme sums of money into production and marketing to remain competitive in a market of perceived diminishing quality which audiences could soon lose confidence in. Now, try selling that investment to backers in these uncertain times.

While all of the above may not come to pass, Suicide Squad will have been aptly named if it is the film that does prove to be the killer of the golden goose of 21st-century cinema, the comic book film.