We felt a great bit of déjà vu while watching Justice League; did you also feel that the film reminded of The Avengers? Yes, it was indeed the first time when Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) joined forces with The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to protect the world, but, it is not difficult to understand. In case fans get a feeling that they have seen it all before and the first time was better, then we get it totally.
Truth is Justice League is a great deal like The Avengers in many ways. Joss Whedon, who had written and directed The Avengers for Marvel and joined DC to direct reshoots and post-production of Justice League. Therefore, Justice League shows us a lot of what we saw during The Avengers in summer of 2012. However, Justice League is without the mega success and praise that the Marvel’s phase 1 finisher got.
Marvel Studios may rightly be praised for their method of creating the MCU. Beginning with Iron-Man, four out of the six Avengers led their successful individual movies before joining ranks for a mega superhero team up. Fans were familiarized with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Hulk in their solo movies (although, Mark Ruffalo took over the part of Hulk/Bruce Banner from Edward Norton, without a hiccup that is). The other characters such as Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) had been familiar as they had done guest appearances in the earlier films before everyone came onboardThe Avengers directed by Joss Whedon. Marvel bid their time and then played their cards. The outcome was a massive success, and it is a great example of how well they had executed Marvel Phase 1 plans.
While DC wanted to replicate Marvel’s success, but, they went in the opposite direction to set up the DCEU. Justice League (was initially planned to be a two-part film) was announced even while filming was not completed on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in late 2014. Superman was the only one established through 2013 movie Man of Steel (though the film had a small Easter egg about Wayne Industries) in this universe. They went on believing that Batman v Superman could be a mega-ensemble to unveil the various Justice League elements all in one shot. Wonder Woman played a key role in the film whereas, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg only had cameos to prove their existence in the DC Extended Universe. Villains of Justice League were introduced via dream sequences, and they were Steppenwolf and the Parademons from Apokolips.
The film had only Superman and Batman as the rival, but, well-established characters and luckily Wonder Woman had also carved a niche for herself, not just in Batman v Superman, but, also with her solo film, which is the most appreciated DCEU movie till now). It seemed as if DC had jumped the gun in a big way. Zack Snyder has a great fan following and he promised a less gritty, funny and positive outlook for Justice League and DC Extended Universe.
But, when his version of the movie didn’t get a great response, they sought external help to boost the screenplay. The guy behind Avengers aka Joss Whedon who had lost favors with Marvel was now chosen to be the writer-director of DC’s Batgirl. Snyder had to quit Justice League due to a personal tragedy, and that’s when Whedon was tasked to manage the two months of reshoots and the post-production of the movie.
DC didn’t create a fresh superhero story to be shown as Justice League’s first mission, but, they eventually ended up imitating the formula used by Whedon in Avengers. The films have similar plots and teams of six superheroes to prevent an alien invasion; cubes as alien power sources; portal traveling aliens and a solo lady hero who has to be among the founding members of the team as well as the initial setbacks which ultimately end in the victory for the heroes.
We don’t know whether any or how much of this was a part of the original plan, but, it was obvious for Whedon to handle the project in Snyder’s absence as he was quite familiar to it. Whedon increased the humor, gave it a brighter tone and incorporated some popular touches to Justice League, the way he had done with Avengers. However, Justice League was stipulated by the studios to ensure a run-time of no more than 2 hours, and that forced them to remove a lot of scenes, and it eventually affected the flow of the story.
A lot of scenes had already been revealed in the trailers and the film being the clash of two varying directorial visions, Justice League resembled a Marvel and Whedon’s earlier films’ clone as well as a weird movie that was akin to a body minus some important body parts. It is true that it is a Justice League film, but, it is not original, even if we take into account the fact that superhero genre is similar to an extent. Even the promotions appeared similar as Justice League had trailers featuring Beatles song “Come Together” which was similar to how The Avengers had made use of Nine Inch Nails song “We’re in This Together.”
DC Films and Warner Bros. can’t be blamed for wishing their mega film to generate the same success that Avengers did for Marvel. The key here is how they had hurried the entire DCEU from the start without being patient and cautious as well as learning from the mistakes, a route that Marvel took to enjoy the success that they now have. A lot of fans question the wisdom of Justice League happening before Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg had their solo movies first, or for that matter Ben Affleck had a single Batman film of his own to properly get the DCEU adaptation of the Gotham vigilante going and ensuring that the controversies related to Batman v Superman were forgotten.
The answer is obvious. DC and Warner Bros. expected to get a rich harvest at the end of Justice League, and they wanted it desperately and hurriedly, even before the League was properly established to take on the world. They tried to risk it by copying the Avengers style of Marvel. The outcome is yet another DC outing disappointing the fans and failing at the box-office. We just hope that Justice League’s debacle doesn’t bring the curtains down on it.
