Comic Book super fan and filmmaker Kevin Smith is no stranger to giving his strong opinions on comic book related things – including Batman. This latest thing, happens to be the recently announced strategy of The DCEU (or DC films).
Back in September, DC Entertainment announced that while some films will still be connected, others won’t be.
As Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns put it:
“Some of the movies do connect the characters together, like Justice League. But, like with Aquaman our goal is not to connect Aquaman to every movie.”
Kevin Smith recently had an interesting chat with Screen Rant about DC’s new strategy:
“All of ‘em are good. There’s no such thing as a bad comic book movie. Even the ones that people say are quote-unquote bad are better than no comic book movies.”
He then went a little deeper:
“I’m a forty-seven-year-old man, so I grew up in an era where there were no comic book movies. And then every once in awhile you’d get one, and it was like water in a desert. You’d get Batman in 1989, or Blade or something like that. So now, we live in an era where they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re not even gonna do an interconnected DC universe. We’re just gonna let Martin Scorsese produce a flick where Leonardo DiCaprio might play the Joker.’ That’s exciting. So, to me, I’m like, the more the merrier.”
He also talked about how Warner Bros. are deviating from the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“I know they’re deviating from the Marvel template of, like, ‘We’ll make a bunch of characters, and then a reunion movie. Buncha characters, reunion movie.’ Instead, Warner Brothers seem to be going with, ‘Well, we tried that, and we’re gonna keep doing it on the side, but we’re not gonna limit ourselves. We’re gonna do a bunch of other interesting things.’ They’re trying to forge their way in the superhero space. So I think it’s interesting, I’m not against that at all.”
He did say that he does like the universes to be connected, though:
“And then you have some people—I’m a purist, so I love when things are interconnected, as well, but I grew up in an era where there was a Batman movie, there was a Superman movie, and they didn’t really reference each other. One time George Clooney was like, ‘This is why Superman works alone’ and we got our nipples hard, we were like, ‘Aaah, they know each other.’ So now we live in a world where these movies can cross over and stuff, I’m happy to get the ones that can, but if they don’t cross ‘em over that’s totally okay with me. As long as they’re good, as long as they try.”
Before closing with:
“And think about—some people get kinda crappy, like, ‘Come on, man, these cats, they don’t know comic books.’ Comic books and characters have been handed to so many creators over the years. You never know what you’re gonna get in the hands of any particular person. I still get crap for making Batman pee his pants in a Batman book once, which is, you know, kind of reducing it to something it wasn’t, but still, regardless, you gotta respect the fact that a creator can come on, maybe take that character [to] a place that you’ve never seen that character be taken. And I gotta imagine, if Martin Scorsese jumps onto a Batman movie, we’re gonna see some sh*t. Not bad sh*t, the good sh*t that we all dream about. Goodfellas in a DC universe movie? I’m there, take all my money.”
The next film DC will be releasing is Justice League, which hits theaters November 17th.
What do you think of Kevin Smith’s comments? Be sure to tell us in the comment section!