Dear James Gunn and Peter Safran...

An open letter to the co-CEOs of DC Studios.

I think it’s really unfair that you guys have been taking it in the shins after Supergirl didn’t perform well at the box office.

Even Marvel Studios, your rival, has been struggling to get people interested enough to turn out for its last three releases— Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps— the way they used to do.

It’s not you, it’s us! It seems that we, the general global populace, have reached a true nadir of superhero fatigue at last.

Sure, people helped Deadpool & Wolverine claw its way to $1 billion for Marvel (I, however, was not one of them). The same will probably happen with Spider-Man: Brand New Day when it releases later this Friday.

But I think, by and large, the sun is setting on superheroes unless they’re known quantities or have something to offer. Spider-Man is, well, Spider-Man; Deadpool & Wolverine had Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in their first MCU outing; and we were all curious to see what a James Gunn-Superman looked like (absolute fun, that’s what). Even Marvel Studios is so desperate for a true hit that it shelled out $400-plus million to bring back Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Fox’s X-Men for Avengers: Doomsday.

All of this is to say: Supergirl flopping at the box office isn’t your fault¹!

In fact, audiences seem disinterested in anything the major studios have to offer these days.

They passed on Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu— unthinkable a decade earlier.

Same with Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day— the man who helped invent the blockbuster!

They even gave a hard pass on Disney’s live-action Moana remake. I won’t lie, that one shocked me, too— people have been so happily deep-throating these mostly forgettable photorealistic remakes to easy box-office hits purely out of nostalgia that I thought they’d do the same with Moana (whoever greenlit this certainly thought so, too).

Even Minions & Monsters and Jackass: Best and Last, the newest installments in their respective dependable franchises, have underperformed despite good reviews.

What I’m trying to say is: You are not alone.

But if it’s true that the era of superhero movies is at end, that’s not good news, is it? Given that your entire thing is…

… well…

_{… superheroes.}

Do you think this is how Atari felt in 1982 after the debacle of the Atari E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial game, with the 1983 video game crash close behind it?

But that’s why I’m writing this. I don’t want you to go the way of Atari! I want you guys to finish your ‘Chapter One: Gods and Monsters’ phase before market economics kills it in its infancy.

I’m rooting for you. So to help you out, I’ve culled some strategies and tips from case studies that I think could help bring audiences into the cinemas despite superhero fatigue.

Especially if your aim is to highlight lesser known characters not named Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

1. Keep the budgets low for non-A-tier superheroes

People say that it’s not possible to launch entire franchises on the back of B- or C-tier superheroes.

Except… that’s exactly what Marvel Studio did in the beginning.

Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor weren’t known names. Not like Spider-Man or the X-Men.

But Marvel Studios didn’t have a choice. Those were the only characters they had available! So they had to convince audiences that these B- and C-tier characters could be as good as— if not better— than A-tier characters.

And they succeeded.

How?

For one, they only had a small war chest to make all the movies— a $525-million credit line from Merrill Lynch². Kevin Feige once called Iron Man an “independent movie” because they had to raise money for the film by pre-selling it to foreign territories and also get a completion bond company.

An expensive independent movie. But I bet no Marvel film has had to go through that ever since.

Iron Man was made for an estimated $150 million. Which sounds like a lot until you factor in that a good chunk went to film it in California, which was more expensive than shooting elsewhere with tax credits. The money was so limited that when director Jon Favreau and his team realized that the final battle wasn’t working, they had to reuse existing VFX plates and footage to add one scene in which Iron Man tricks his nemesis Iron Monger to fly high and get his suit frozen. It cost $6 million, and Favreau agonized over the decision.

What seems like a clever callback was really an invention of necessity and desperation.

Oh, and it’s on record that Iron Man went into production WITHOUT a completed script.

So what’s this about The Hollywood Reporter saying that creative differences ultimately led to *checks notes* a “nine-day shoot of additional photography” to reconfigure the climactic fight, and a “bakeoff by creating two cuts, one by [director Craig] Gillespie and one by the studio”?

All this sounds costly!

If Ike Perlmutter was your boss, he’d be screaming “NO NO NO!”

I’m just kidding— if Ike Perlmutter was your boss, he wouldn’t have let you make Supergirl in the first place.

But I think that his frugality with money is something worth emulating on future budgets.

Especially for characters not involving the DC Trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Keep the budget as reasonably low as possible, and work within those constraints.

And another thing: no major disagreements between producers and director. That’s a big no-no especially on a lesser known property.

Which brings us to…

2. Constraints are the friends of creativity

Iron Man has a lot to teach us, so I’ll be citing it quite a bit.

A lean budget forces everyone involved to be mindful about the limitations. These limitations forces everyone to be thoughtful about the story.

And with a superhero movie, constrained funding means that only a few action sequences can be shot before running out of money. ‘Cause, you know… VFX costs money.

That’s why if you look at Iron Man, it only has FOUR major action sequences:

1. The convoy attack at the beginning;

2. Tony Stark breaking out of the cave in a prototype suit;

3. Iron Man battling the Ten Rings in the fictional village of Gulmira and flight chase between Iron Man and the U.S. Air Force;

4. The Iron Man vs Iron Monger showdown.

That’s it. No, really. A lot of the money went into the third act— which is really the weakest part of the film since its basically two robots hitting each other.

But the film shines as a result of these constraints because the rest of the runtime consists of scenes with:

• Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) experimenting in his garage;

• Tony Stark flirting with a reporter (Leslie Bibb);

• Tony Stark flirting with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow);

• Tony Stark bantering with best friend James Rhodey (Terrence Howard);

• Tony Stark discussing matters with mentor-turned-villain Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges);

• Tony Stark bonding with fellow captive Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toulb) in the cave.

Feige wasn’t lying: Iron Man really is an independent film in spirit.

And it is precisely those scenes that won audiences over.

The biggest special effect wasn’t the Iron Man suit: It was Robert Downey Jr.’s charm.

I’ll come back to this point later. But the biggest takeaway is that limiting VFX scenes means being thoughtful about what you can shoot, and to focus on story instead.

This goes for any film, but with a lesser known DC character, this is extremely crucial.

3. Keep your primary story to film without dividing it across both film and TV!

This is straight out of the Walt Disney playbook. I’m referring to the founder, not the studio.

Let’s look at Mickey Mouse.

After the explosive success of Steamboat Willie (1928), Walt Disney discovered, almost accidentally, that so long as he did not cannibalize the core IP in its primary delivery vehicle— i.e. Mickey Mouse short films— people would happily consume all things Mickey Mouse in secondary delivery vehicles.

Basically:

• If Walt Disney released a new Mickey Mouse short film every day or week, audiences would quickly grow tired;

• But if Mickey Mouse appeared in a daily comic strip, magazines, or merchandise, it didn’t matter.

So Walt Disney used the short films (the primary delivery vehicle) to create scarcity, releasing only 10-12 Mickey Mouse short films every year. That’s because he used the short films to introduce new characters such as Minnie Mouse and Pluto, and test out new animation techniques such switching from black-and-white to color.

In other words: the primary delivery vehicle of the short films were SPECIAL; the secondary delivery vehicles— comics, books, magazines— not so much³.

That’s why it’s a bad idea to divide the overarching story for ‘Chapter One: Gods and Monsters’ between film and TV shows. The films should be special and have the main story; the TV shows should be separate.

I say this because Marvel tried it as far back with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show suffered trying to stick with what was happening in the movies until it pulled away from the movies and became its own thing; meanwhile, it was always strange that the movies never addressed the fact that Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) was alive in the TV universe.

Fans unconsciously expect a level of continuity between the mediums if they’re in the same universe. For some reason, the comics can get away with it; not with film and TV.

Now I saw in an interview that the events of Peacemaker season 2— namely the Checkmate organization and the interplanetary prison Salvation— will have an important part in the upcoming Superman follow-up film, Man of Tomorrow. I read that you aren’t expecting people to watch the TV shows to understand what’s happening in the films… but it really is a dangerous gamble.

Especially now that people are burned out by Marvel’s attempt to weave everything through both mediums— remember how WandaVision led directly to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness… and how confusing it must have been if you didn’t watch WandaVision?

Let the films and TV shows be their own thing.

4. It’s okay not to have everything planned out completely

I find it hilarious that all of Marvel Studios’ Phase Two and Phase Three films were re-oriented around Joss Whedon’s almost throwaway post-credits reveal of Thanos in The Avengers. What was supposed to be a bone for comic book fans became the entire spine of Marvel’s films after 2012.

In contrast, trying to engineer the story from the top-down with Kang the Conqueror post-Endgame really backfired. The same thing happened with your predecessor, DC Films. The more you try to plan it from a top-down approach, the worse the results. Just look at what happened to Edgar Wright’s attempt to make Ant-Man.

Don’t be afraid to let things unfold naturally versus being yet another piece in some grand plan. In fact, letting the films narratively stand alone actually helps the story; forcing it to fit a plan makes it very unnatural.

If you’ve read this far, I hope that if you only ever decide to apply one of these strategies, it’s the one I’m about to talk about next.

Here it is…

5. MAKE THE FILMS SPECIAL!

Especially with non-marquee comic book superheroes.

Too many big-budget films today look like they exist simply because a corporate executive mandated them.

But audiences want a GENUINE reason to watch a movie. You think that The Odyssey is currently making bank because there’s a huge contingency of Homer fans? Of course not! They are there to see what Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s poem looks like… and what a film shot entirely on IMAX looks like.

A DC Studios film needs to feel like an event. It needs to feel special.

And there are many ways to do this.

Several paragraphs earlier, I mentioned how Robert Downey Jr.’s charm was the real special effect for Iron Man. That’s because superhero films at that time did NOT have an offbeat irreverent quipster as a superhero; they were either nerdy (Spider-Man), moody (Batman, Wolverine, Hulk), or serious (Superman).

Something similar happened in 1998, when people flocked to watch Blade (1998) starring Wesley Snipes as a vampire hunter. He was the real draw, and it wasn’t everyday you saw both Black superheroes AND vampires in the same movie⁴.

Take Black Panther. Chadwick Boseman was the star and draw. At the same time, nothing like Black Panther had ever been seen on the big screen at that point.

Sometimes, it’s groundbreaking new technology to tell the story that draws people in.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day and its early CGI effects to bring the villainous liquid-robot T-1000 to life.

Jurassic Park pushing CGI further to create realistic dinosaurs.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy using motion-capture to bring Gollum to life, building realistic sets, and shooting on location to create a Middle-Earth you bought into at once.

The Avatar movies took decades to make because James Cameron had to literally invent the technology to create what he had in mind.

Look over at the Spider-Verse movies. Miles Morales was a new character, which was a draw, but the animation was the real attraction: it was absolutely stunning!

And did I mention how every Christopher Nolan film is an excuse to see how he uses IMAX cameras and practical effects to tell stories on a gigantic scale?

On that note…

Sometimes, the secret sauce that brings people out is the filmmaker themselves.

I already mentioned Christopher Nolan, so let’s look at Ryan Coogler.

People turned Sinners into a hit partly because it was Ryan Coogler’s take on a Southern Gothic vampire period film.

People turned Barbie into a blockbuster hit because it was Greta Gerwig’s take on the character, not the Barbie brand itself.

In all these instances, it’s the filmmaker’s uniqueness that is the draw.

The filmmaker doesn’t need to always be famous to make a film unique. Nolan wasn’t a household name before he made Batman Begins or The Dark Knight so different from anything we’d ever seen. Same goes with— surprise!— Guardians of the Galaxy, which brought a pop song-infused sensibility to the superhero genre that George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese did with their films. Now every other film is trying to ape it.

Of course, story matters too, but great stories don’t always lead to box-office results— or else many art-house films would be lucrative.

The point is this:

A character alone is NOT ENOUGH. A brand alone is NOT ENOUGH.

A DC Comics film needs to be SOMETHING MORE to get audiences excited. It needs to feel like an EVENT.

It can do this in one or more ways:

1. Have a charming and compelling lead actor/actress. I’m talking Robert Downey Jr.-levels of charisma that makes it the film’s secret sauce.

2. Create a powerful role for the supporting actor/actress. Sure, Nolan tipped an entire fricking truck for real on a Chicago street, but the real draw of The Dark Knight was Heath Ledger as the Joker. Morbidly, his untimely death only built buzz for the film⁵; but that doesn’t mean you have to kill off performers to generate publicity! Something similar happened with Weapons as Amy Madigan boosted the film with an award-winning performance as the antagonist Gladys. For me, that was the standout feature.

3. The technology. Nolan uses IMAX cameras. James Cameron literally pushes to create the technology for breathtaking visual effects. Superhero films are the best vehicles for testing out new technology. In the case of Spider-Verse, the animation style was something wholly new. Have DC Studios films be vehicles for testing new technology, whether in VFX or cameras.

4. The director. Filmmakers like Nolan, Ryan Coogler, Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, Denis Villeneuve, and James Gunn are the new brands. Audiences want to see a specific filmmaker’s unique take on a movie. Not just Barbie— Gerwig’s Barbie. Not just Sinners— Coogler’s Sinners. Not just Superman— Gunn’s Superman. The director is the event.

If you want DC Studios to survive, every DC Studios film has to be special in some way.

I see this happening already with Clayface— a small budget ($40 million est.), Mike Flanagan’s name attached to it, and a HORROR film. I did hear that Hossein Amini (Drive) did reshape much of what Flanagan wrote after he turned to adapt Stephen King’s Carrie for TV, but it’s still more INTRIGUING than any regular superhero film.

And that’s what the other DC superhero films need to be: intriguing.

What happened to Supergirl is a real shame, but it is the canary in the coalmine to say: the time for playing it safe is over. If superhero fatigue is real, then the only way to keep audiences coming back is to give them a compelling reason to return.

Keep the budget low. Use constraints to get creative. Make it special.

No half-measures.

All the best, especially with the pesky Paramount-Warner Bros. merger temporarily stalled!

D.L. Holmes

---

Thanks for reading! If you liked this, you can sign up here for more issues. If you’d like to support Three Left Feet Media, share this newsletter with a fellow film lover you think would appreciate it.

Long live the movies!

1. Not to mention how exhausting it must be dealing with the misogyny from the core fan base over female-led superhero movies or attempts to inject a little diversity, without it erupting into a cycle of online abuse. I read that Warner Bros. executives were taken aback by some fanboy vitriol against Milly Alcock’s casting and her appearance. It really doesn’t help with the marketing or efforts to bring lesser-known characters to the screen.

2. Which is almost as much as Marvel Studios is spending on all of Avengers: Doomsday. If that film doesn’t make back its money, it really will be a Doomsday all right.

3. By the way, these secondary delivery vehicles— which included 800 Mickey Mouse Clubs in America with over 1 million members, more than the Boy and Girl Scouts of America put together at the time— helped keep the brand alive and brought in much-needed revenue for Walt Disney to experiment.

4. In fact, Marvel Studios literally failed to create a new version of Blade for the MCU while going ahead with a Ryan Gosling Ghost Rider project.

5. Which led to a posthumous Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor.