Cape Watch: Batman v Superman Might Bomb, But Have Hope for DC's Other Flicks

The premieres have happened, the reviews are out (and painful), and chances are you're just hours away from seeing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice for yourself. But if you can pull yourself away from images of Batfleck punching Superhenry for just a few seconds, there are some things that we would like to bring to your attention. "What are those things?" you ask? Why, they're the highlights of the last week's superhero movie news.

Rejoice, Stucky fans! (That's "Steve + Bucky" for those of you not familiar with the portmanteau.) Director Joe Russo calls the upcoming Captain America: Civil War a "love story." The bad news, however, is that when he used the phrase in conversation with Empire, he meant it in a platonic way. "These are two guys who grew up together, and so they have that same emotional connection to each other as brothers would, and even more so because Bucky was all Steve had growing up." Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky, concurs: "I think it’s easy and generalizing it to say that they’re lovers, when you’re forgetting that one has a lot of guilt because he swore to be the protector of the other, the father figure or older brother so to speak, and then left him behind," he said in the same piece. "I have no qualms with it but I think people like to see it much more as a love story than it actually is. It’s brotherhood to me."
Why this is unfortunate for shippers: Not that anyone expected the Bucky/Cap relationship to become canon, but this is as definitive a pushback against that fandom as could happen short of Captain America turning to Bucky during the film itself and saying, "Yo, Buck. No homo, right?" It's one of those cases where it would've been preferable for all involved to have allowed the subtext to have remained unspoken.

While we're waiting to go see Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (or not, given the early reviews), Collider talked to producer Deborah Snyder about what's next for the DC cinematic universe. The post-BvS movies are "so different from each other," she said. "David [Ayer, Suicide Squad director] has created this really fun movie about bad guys trying to do good, and it’s brazen, and it has just a really great tone to it, so it’s really fun. And it’s so different from BvS and it’s completely different from what Patty Jenkins is doing with Wonder Woman... Even just the color palette and everything of the films are so different from one another. And I think that’s what’s so great about having these directors come on board who have a very strong vision and point of view for these characters and these stories and they can really make it their own, so that’s pretty cool." She also said that Wonder Woman was nearing the end of its shoot, Justice League starts shooting April 11, and an Aquaman script is currently in development.
Why this is super: While "each movie bears the mark of its director" is likely a way of differentiating the DC properties from their Marvel brethren, it could also be read as a sign to those disinterested in Batman v Superman: "Come back, the next one will be different...!"

While we're talking about Justice League, Collider also talked to Zack Snyder, who shared that Justice League Part One won't be the movie's actual name. "Right now the working title is Justice League," he explained. "Actually, I’m in that phase where I’ve been drawing logos and I’ve been drawing title treatments and stuff like that to try and figure out what it means, what Justice League is, visually, so we’ll see if the name evolves with this visual presentation." This is important because it suggests that perhaps the two Justice League movies won't necessarily be a two-part story after all, allowing for a course correction if BvS tanks at the box office.
Why this is super: Of course, if Justice League does end up being two separate movies akin to the first two Avengers, then that might explain why screenwriter Chris Terrio has suggested he'd only be writing one JL movie. But where does this leave the second one, especially if BvS underperforms?

Of course, there's an entirely different Dark Knight waiting in the (bat-)wings, and this week Lego Batman released its first promotional images and title card.

Director Chris McKay described the movie this way to USA Today: "Batman is an island onto himself, the only thing he doesn’t have is relationships... We're making About a Boy as directed by Michael Mann."

Why this is super: If you somehow weren't into this before—maybe you didn't see The Lego Movie, which you should probably fix right away—then you really should be now. Michael Mann's About a Boy?! Who doesn't want to see that?

One final piece about Warners' DC plans, and it's a rebuttal from producer Charles Roven to the idea that the studio will look at the success of Deadpool and start aiming movies at older viewers. "I understand why Deadpool was released as an R-rated film, and I think that the DC Justice League characters, particularly because so many of them are so iconographic, have been around for so long and for so many generations that have grown up with them, and that are still growing up with them, I think we want to present them, when we finally present them, to the broadest possible audience that we can," he told Collider. (Yup, those guys again; they had a great week.) "I think that’s why we’ve planned on making these movies PG-13. I’m not seeing any real reason to change. We’ve made some pretty edgy films that are rated PG-13. You never want to say 'never' because we all evolve, but right now I think we’re staying that course."
Why this is super: The reason this is good is a no-brainer, surely? Keeping superhero movies—especially movies featuring Superman, Batman et al—as movies that kids can go and see just feels obvious. Not that that means anything in Hollywood, of course.