0:00

Previously on With Great Power.

0:04

I pitched him the idea

0:06

of Marvel financing its own movies. He doesn't

0:09

seem like a second tier character anymore,

0:11

but it's like, who's Iron Man? After

0:14

Iron Man was released, we were stunned

0:16

by the success of the movie at the box office.

0:19

Marvel had been on our

0:21

radar screen for quite some time. He

0:23

said, can you believe they're serious

0:25

about maybe buying Marvel? I was afraid

0:28

of DC. Their model

0:30

was hiring Final Cut directors, and sometimes

0:32

that works and you get a Chris Nolan movie. But with

0:34

Marvel Studios,

0:36

we needed directors and talent

0:38

that wanted to be part of a team.

0:46

Okay, I'm walking into the bar, Marvel Tribute starting.

0:50

Do you have a Hefeweizen? Hefeweizen? No. Okay,

0:54

let me have a draft of that, please. I'm

0:57

in a brew pub in LA, sipping a beer. I'm

1:00

surrounded by strangers,

1:02

but they're also my kind of people. It's

1:04

trivia night for a bunch of comic book and film

1:07

geeks.

1:10

We're here tonight because it's Marvel trivia

1:12

night. Woo! Everybody

1:16

breaks up into teams. Dark Moon Knights

1:18

did get that one. Good job, Dark Moon Knight. The

1:21

Dark Moon Knight. That's my

1:23

team name. Well, actually, it's

1:25

not much of a team. I'm

1:29

playing solo. I mean, me alone against

1:31

teams of three or four people, my

1:34

odds are not very good, you know? I just don't want to come

1:36

in last place. For a little while, I'm holding my own.

1:39

What Marvel show explores alternate timelines

1:41

of the multiverse in which major

1:43

moments in the MCU happened

1:45

just a little bit differently? What's

1:48

the name of that show? All right, I got this one.

1:50

It's the anthology series, What

1:52

If? But then the questions get tougher, After

1:56

the Battle of New York, the Avengers assemble

1:59

at a restaurant.

1:59

eat what food? What villain is

2:02

the primary antagonist of Ant-Man? What does

2:04

Ned call his grandmother? What is the

2:06

name of the metal that in Thor Love and Thunder

2:09

who does Thor entail with his own

2:11

thunderbolt before stealing the weapon?

2:13

His own thunderbolt? Oh, uh,

2:16

what is his father's name? It may

2:18

not be his father, but that's my guess.

2:26

By now, I'm in last place.

2:30

Of course, I am playing solo. But

2:32

also, if I'm honest, I've always

2:35

been a bit more of a DC guy. Before

2:38

I came to this pub, I joked about

2:40

wearing my Green Lantern t-shirt. Or

2:42

my flash shirt. Or my Riddler shirt.

2:45

But I thought better of it. I

2:47

did find a fellow DC fan here, Fabian

2:50

Lacerra. But he's just not

2:52

feeling DC's movies these days.

3:16

I get it.

3:19

For the past decade, DC has been

3:21

chasing Marvel's success at the box office.

3:23

No wonder this bar isn't hosting a DC

3:26

trivia night. So, how

3:28

did Marvel get so far ahead of

3:30

its biggest rival? It

3:32

all comes down to two things. A

3:35

big idea ripped straight from the pages of the comics.

3:38

And a studio chief with a vision to

3:40

pull it all off. From

3:42

the journal, this is With Great

3:48

Power,

3:51

the rise of superhero cinema. I'm

3:54

Ben Fritz. This is episode

3:57

three. It's all connected.

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5:15

Marvel Studios is built around a big narrative

5:18

idea, which we'll get to in a bit. But

5:20

first, we need to know about the man who

5:22

makes it happen. The man who runs

5:24

Marvel Studios. Kevin Feige.

5:29

A lot of Marvel fans know him as the dorky guy

5:31

with the dad energy. Hi there. Hi there.

5:34

Hi. It has been too long since we've done this.

5:37

Who walks red carpets wearing a ball cap.

5:39

We have to talk about the hat. Yeah, there you go. We

5:41

have to talk about the hat, your tradition. Yes.

5:44

I'm bald, so I wear a hat a lot. Heck

5:47

yeah. That's the tradition. That's the way to

5:49

do it. Kevin Feige is the president of Marvel Studios.

5:52

And whether you measure by box office or

5:54

cultural influence, he's the

5:57

most successful producer in modern Hollywood

5:59

history.

6:01

Feige has produced every film Marvel

6:03

Studios has released. I

6:06

talked with a lot of people about him, and

6:08

they all agreed about one thing. Before

6:10

Feige was assembling the Avengers for the big

6:12

screen... Kevin just lived,

6:15

ate, and breathed Marvel's

6:17

stories. He was absolutely the perfect

6:19

executive with the perfect knowledge and the perfect

6:22

understanding of what all of these characters

6:24

needed. He loves

6:25

movies. He loves movies. He

6:27

sleeps, eats, drinks, loves,

6:30

you know, he loves all movies. I

6:32

think Kevin Feige is the ultimate embodiment

6:34

of a guy who really respects comics. Kevin

6:37

Feige has multiple billions of dollars

6:39

more of box office than any other producer

6:41

ever. And people don't talk

6:44

about that enough.

6:46

Feige doesn't typically answer questions

6:49

about Marvel's business, so I wasn't surprised

6:51

when Disney said he wouldn't sit down for an interview

6:53

with me. But he has talked

6:56

publicly about how he got started in the movie

6:58

business.

6:59

It began in the 90s when Feige

7:01

was admitted to the University of Southern California's

7:03

film school. He had to apply

7:06

six times. He finally

7:08

got in

7:09

and soon realized all the smart kids were going

7:11

after internships. And one

7:13

day, he was hanging around a campus

7:16

office when he noticed a flyer.

7:19

Feige described this moment to the New York

7:21

Film Academy. And I walked in

7:24

and saw Donner, Schuler

7:26

Donner Productions. Richard Donner, of course, did Superman,

7:29

Lethal Weapon Goonies, and I just like, the

7:31

room got dark and a spotlight

7:34

was on that and I literally like tore

7:36

the number off. That number

7:38

was for a production company run by Richard

7:40

Donner and Lauren Schuler Donner.

7:43

Richard was a big director. Lauren

7:46

was a well-known producer. So

7:48

Feige typed up his first ever resume.

7:51

And he soon landed at an internship working with

7:53

the Hollywood Power Couple. Hi,

8:00

it's Ben French from the Wall Street Journal. A

8:04

few months ago, I went to visit Lauren, who

8:06

was Kevin's first Hollywood mentor.

8:09

Her office is brimming with memorabilia, like

8:11

the Crypt Keeper puppet from Tales from the Crypt. That

8:14

scared me. The Crypt Keeper's sitting right

8:16

here when we walk in. And posters from films that she

8:18

produced. Right in front of the X-Men Days of Future

8:21

Past poster. X-Men first

8:23

class, X-Men... And

8:26

you've got mail. Thank

8:28

you for agreeing to do this. First of all, Lauren, I really appreciate

8:30

it. It's my pleasure to talk about Kevin. I

8:33

wanted to know what Faggy was like before he became

8:35

arguably the most powerful person in the film

8:37

business. We heard that you, um... Did

8:40

you make him buy a suit and get a haircut at

8:41

some point? No, I bought him some clothes. He

8:44

dressed like a slob. How

8:46

did he usually dress? You know,

8:48

he just... He's kind of an old shirt. Mind

8:51

him, I've been washed. One

8:54

thing Faggy noticed about Lauren was that

8:56

as a producer, she was always busy.

9:00

In a podcast interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Faggy

9:03

said he admired directors, but noticed

9:05

that they often sat idle between gigs.

9:09

And Lauren was always producing movies or developing

9:11

movies. And the people that had worked for Lauren

9:14

were being moved up into positions with more,

9:16

you know, creative input. So

9:18

Faggy absorbed everything he could while

9:20

working for Lauren. First as an intern,

9:23

then as her personal assistant. He

9:26

traveled with Lauren to film shoots, talked

9:28

her puppy around the studio lot, and

9:31

taught Meg Ryan how to use email on

9:33

the set of You've Got Mail.

9:36

Most importantly, though, Faggy

9:38

gave notes on scripts.

9:42

That was a big deal when Faggy saw a new

9:44

screenplay in the office one day.

9:47

It was for X-Men, based on Marvel's

9:49

team of mutant superheroes.

9:52

In the 90s, Marvel sold the X-Men

9:54

film rights to 20th Century Fox.

9:57

Lauren was producing the movie. was

10:00

geeking out. We were

10:03

always open to notes. I think

10:05

he right away impressed me as somebody who knew

10:07

the world better than I did. He understood

10:10

how to make a movie, and then brought

10:12

his whole knowledge of the X-Men world.

10:16

During production, Feige was an on-set

10:18

expert. He knew characters like Wolverine,

10:21

the tormented mutant with the wild

10:23

hairdo and retractable claws, played

10:25

by Hugh Jackman.

10:27

And in the 90s, in Hollywood, that

10:29

degree of geek wisdom wasn't exactly

10:32

typical. Other people on set

10:34

started to pay attention to Feige. People

10:36

like Marvel's Avi Arad, who

10:38

we met earlier in the series.

10:41

Avi was an executive producer on X-Men.

10:44

And Kevin was a guy that I can call

10:46

and say, I just saw the

10:48

hair on Wolverine.

10:51

Do

10:51

you agree that it's weird? He said yes.

10:54

So let's do something about

10:56

it.

10:57

Soon, Avi wanted to poach Lauren's

10:59

fanboy assistant for himself.

11:01

So as production was wrapping on X-Men, Lauren

11:04

got a call. It was Avi.

11:08

Do you remember when Avi first approached

11:10

you and said, I want to hire Kevin Feige? Yes,

11:13

I do remember him saying, I

11:15

would like to steal Kevin.

11:18

I said, listen, I think Kevin

11:20

is a diamond in a rock.

11:22

And what

11:24

he needs to do is go make movies. He

11:27

cannot babysit

11:29

puppies. He's too intellectual,

11:32

too brilliant, too hardworking. He

11:34

comes to set, he knows what he's doing.

11:36

I mean, to be really honest, it

11:38

was like, oh, it was a real gut punch.

11:41

On the other hand, it was totally

11:43

obvious. It was where he belonged.

11:46

It was where he was born for. And

11:50

I, of course, said yes.

11:52

In 2000, Avi hired Feige, who

11:55

became his shadow on all parts of Marvel

11:57

productions. At first, Feige

11:59

was a star.

11:59

He drove Avi to meetings and carried his bags.

12:03

And over time, he went on to become one

12:05

of Marvel's most successful creative executives.

12:08

Eventually, Avi says he pushed to

12:10

Gefaghi a big promotion.

12:13

And in a board meeting, I say

12:15

to them, time to make

12:18

Kevin the president.

12:21

And he told time. He was ready. Because

12:23

he's a very sophisticated learner.

12:30

That promotion came in 2007.

12:33

As Marvel started shooting Iron Man, Fyge

12:35

was now the studio's head of production. And

12:38

he soon started to execute a master plan

12:40

that would end up becoming Marvel's calling card,

12:43

a so-called cinematic universe.

12:46

It was the idea of a shared narrative linking

12:49

every movie.

12:51

No studio had ever had superheroes star

12:53

in their own movies and then all

12:55

joined together in one mega movie.

12:58

Fyge teased that idea at San Diego Comic

13:00

Con in 2006, two years

13:02

before Marvel's first film came out. And

13:05

you put them all together. There's no coincidence

13:07

that that may someday equal the Avengers. I

13:10

think just

13:12

having that possibility

13:14

on the horizon is something that excites all

13:17

of us. Comic book fans

13:19

loved it. But this concept of cross-link

13:22

narratives went against most Hollywood

13:24

studio executives' instincts. The

13:27

interwoven storytelling might

13:28

prove too complicated for anyone

13:30

but dedicated fanboys and fangirls. If

13:33

being into Captain America meant you

13:36

also had to see Thor and Avengers,

13:38

wasn't there a risk average moviegoers would just

13:41

skip them all? And I

13:43

know that a lot of us, including

13:45

Kevin, that was the goal, is can we

13:47

manifest this crazy dream all the way

13:50

to an Avengers movie, which

13:52

seemed impossible at the moment, both technically

13:54

and just seemed crazy. That's

13:56

Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael

13:58

Bendis. The idea of interconnected

14:01

movies started small, with

14:03

one scene. It was to run

14:06

after the credits in Iron Man.

14:08

Kevin Feige needed someone to write that scene,

14:11

so he turned to Bendis. I got

14:14

an 11 o'clock at night call from Kevin, which

14:16

was appropriate, and said, hey,

14:19

tomorrow Samuel L.

14:22

Jackson is doing somebody a huge

14:24

favor in coming in to do a

14:26

cameo. And I literally thought he was just calling

14:28

to go, can you believe it? And

14:31

I went, oh, that's amazing. And he goes, yeah,

14:34

we actually don't have anything for him to

14:36

say. Do you have a minute to

14:38

jot some shit down? Ryan's

14:41

assignment was to write a few lines for Jackson's

14:43

character, Nick Fury, the

14:45

spy chief who brings the Avengers together.

14:49

It's like I wrote any to-be-continued

14:51

idea you could possibly think of for Iron

14:54

Man and Nick Fury, and it's like three

14:56

pages of one-liners. And

14:58

I stayed up all night because I was so excited.

15:01

I was just enjoying it. And then I handed

15:03

it in, and I think

15:05

like a day later, I got, oh, that worked out

15:07

great. And I go, oh, did Samuel

15:10

L. Jackson actually say stuff? And they

15:12

go, yeah, yeah, it worked.

15:13

And fans like Reggie Simmons caught

15:16

on.

15:17

He'd heard rumors about an Easter egg after

15:19

Iron Man, so he stayed in his seat until

15:22

the end of the credits.

15:23

And that scene he caught,

15:25

though it runs just 36 seconds, Reggie

15:28

remembers it exactly.

15:30

And at the end of Iron Man 1, we

15:33

have Tony Stark returning home. Jarvis,

15:37

welcome home, sir. And he

15:39

sees a silhouette, and it

15:42

is a figure that starts speaking

15:44

to him. You think you're the only superhero

15:47

in the world? It is revealed that

15:50

it is Nick Fury. Who the hell

15:52

are you? Nick Fury,

15:55

director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Oh.

15:59

Avenger initiative.

16:03

When fans like Reggie saw that scene,

16:05

they freaked out. This

16:08

was completely unexpected. What

16:10

this does is it just opens

16:13

up the question of where

16:16

is all of this going? Who

16:18

is he alluding to that, you know,

16:20

there's other superheroes out there.

16:22

What might happen next?

16:25

And what happened next? More

16:27

clues. Breadcrumbs sprinkled

16:30

throughout every Marvel movie, suggesting

16:32

that they were all connected. Like

16:35

Iron Man showing up at a bar in The Incredible

16:37

Hulk. If I told you we were putting a team

16:39

together, he was

16:42

we. A Hawkeye cameo

16:44

in the first Thor movie. Better call it Coulson, because

16:47

I'm starting to root with this guy. The

16:50

discovery of Thor's hammer in Iron Man 2.

16:52

So we found it. And

16:58

Iron Man's dad creating Captain America's

17:00

shield. Vibranium is

17:02

stronger than steel and a third the weight.

17:04

And when those storylines climaxed

17:07

altogether in one big movie, 2012's

17:10

The Avengers, the payoff was

17:12

huge. The power surrounding the

17:14

cube is impenetrable. Thor's right. We've got

17:16

to deal with these guys.

17:18

How do we do this? As a team. It

17:23

turned out that average moviegoers weren't

17:25

turned off by the complexity. They

17:27

were drawn in. The

17:29

Avengers wasn't just a blockbuster. It

17:32

crushed records.

17:33

Avengers opened this weekend and

17:35

it took in more than $200 million in just three days.

17:39

They're on track to break a huge record.

17:41

The Avengers has slated to

17:44

top $1 billion in sales worldwide

17:46

this weekend.

17:51

Avengers grossed more than $1.5 billion. It

17:55

was the biggest superhero film ever and

17:58

the third highest grossing movie of all time.

17:59

after Avatar and Titanic.

18:03

Four years after its first movie, Marvel

18:06

Studios was officially the hottest company

18:08

in Hollywood, and it was all

18:10

thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

18:14

Marvel's success set every other studio

18:16

in Hollywood back on its heels, especially

18:19

Warner Brothers, the longtime owner

18:21

of Marvel's arch rival, DC Comics.

18:25

Just a few years earlier, DC ruled

18:27

the box office with The Dark Knight.

18:29

Now, Marvel was number

18:32

one, and DC had to

18:34

play catch up. So

18:36

DC decided to build a cinematic universe

18:38

of its own, but doing

18:41

so would turn out to be a lot harder

18:43

than Marvel made it look. That's

18:47

after the break.

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This episode is brought to you by UiPath, the

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you.

20:02

At the world premiere in 2016

20:04

of the DC film Suicide Squad, director

20:07

David Ayer took the stage. The

20:13

audience of DC diehards was amped

20:16

up. Suddenly, a lone

20:18

voice from the crowd shouted an expletive.

20:28

Death marvel.

20:30

Ayer apologized after the screening.

20:33

He later tweeted, quote, someone

20:35

said it, I echoed, not cool. It

20:38

was a cringy moment, but one that captured

20:40

the frustrations of filmmakers on Team DC.

20:44

Decades after Christopher Reeve convinced the world

20:46

a man could fly in Superman and

20:49

Michael Keaton terrorized the underworld

20:51

as Batman, DC's

20:53

filmmaking prowess had fallen back to Earth.

20:56

And I want to spend a little time here explaining how

20:58

that happened. DC

21:01

has been owned by Warner Brothers since the 60s,

21:04

and it has the best known superheroes in

21:06

the world. So why

21:08

didn't DC's cinematic universe take

21:11

off the way Marvel's did?

21:13

I asked the woman who spearheaded DC's

21:15

business for nearly a decade.

21:17

So the first thing we're asking anybody is would you

21:20

just kind of do a brief introduction of your of yourself?

21:22

Yeah. Hi, I'm Diane Nelson.

21:25

I was president of DC Entertainment

21:27

from 2009 until 2018. And

21:32

I was at Warner Brothers

21:33

for about 22 years, inclusive

21:36

of that nine year run at DC. A

21:40

few years into Diane's tenure at DC

21:42

Entertainment, the whole world was talking

21:45

about Marvel.

21:47

The

21:47

Avengers, Iron Man, Guardians

21:50

of the Galaxy. That's DC's

21:52

iconic characters like Batman, Superman

21:55

or Wonder Woman.

21:57

That I imagine

21:58

must have been frustrating. At times to

22:00

see or no. Yeah. Yeah, no,

22:03

well, sure. Certainly there was an undercurrent

22:05

of frustration that we were not hitting the

22:08

mark.

22:10

DC was looking for a plan to match

22:12

Marvel's success.

22:14

The thing is, unlike Marvel Studios,

22:17

DC Entertainment didn't actually make

22:20

movies. There was no powerful

22:22

producer like Kevin Feige on the DC

22:24

side. Instead,

22:26

Diane's DC division played an advisory

22:29

role, while the Warner Motion Picture

22:31

executives called the shots. We

22:33

were not a standalone studio

22:36

the way Marvel was. They were

22:38

a freestanding studio

22:40

with their own production budgets, their

22:42

own production staff. They

22:45

were really charting their own courts, and

22:47

they did an amazing job of it. Fans

22:50

assumed that we at Warner

22:52

Brothers were replicating the organizational

22:54

structure of Marvel. In fact, we

22:57

did not. And it was quite intentional.

22:59

So obviously, as you said, people, you

23:01

know, a lot of fans or people in the outside

23:03

world didn't understand how this worked. But what

23:06

about internally?

23:07

I don't know that there was

23:10

an appreciation for the extent

23:12

to which the DC team

23:15

was really just

23:17

have a seat at the table. We

23:20

would have the heads of each of the relevant

23:22

businesses and DC to talk about

23:24

DC-related issues, including

23:26

our slate of films and TV

23:29

shows and video games and so forth. But

23:32

DC was not the ones leading

23:35

that charge. And honestly, I'm

23:38

not sure there was anyone leading

23:40

that charge. It just wasn't the

23:42

culture of Warner Brothers

23:43

to

23:46

dictate a particular strategy.

23:49

We reached out to Warner Brothers, and a spokeswoman

23:51

declined to comment.

23:54

Warner Brothers had always been a filmmaker-first

23:57

studio.

23:58

And for a long time, it considered Christopher

24:00

Nolan to be its superhero guru.

24:03

His Dark Knight Batman trilogy was

24:05

a crown jewel for the company. It had

24:07

a mature tone and huge receipts

24:09

at the box office.

24:11

Nolan approached Batman in a cerebral way.

24:14

Here's Nolan in an interview with the BBC

24:16

in 2016. You can really tap

24:19

into the collective fears

24:22

that we have as a society, and particularly in the case

24:24

of Batman. You

24:27

have the opportunity

24:28

through his environment, through Gotham, to

24:31

really offer a very dark reflection

24:33

of the society we live in.

24:36

Former Warner execs told me that after the Dark

24:38

Knight trilogy ended in 2012, they

24:40

were banking on Nolan to make more superhero

24:42

films.

24:43

Maybe he'd direct Superman. Maybe

24:46

he'd even bring the DC super team Justice

24:48

League to the big screen. So

24:50

they waited for Nolan and

24:52

waited. But eventually,

24:54

Nolan decided to take a back seat. He

24:57

agreed to produce a Superman reboot

24:59

and anoint another filmmaker to direct it.

25:02

Here's Nolan at the Santa Barbara Film Festival,

25:04

talking about it around that time. I mean, what

25:07

I'm doing on that is I'm hired a

25:09

great director to take it

25:11

on. It's sort of more his problem than mine,

25:13

hopefully. Enter

25:16

Zack Snyder. Uh,

25:19

Superman's pretty awesome, as you know. Snyder

25:23

was Nolan's pick to direct 2013's

25:25

Superman relaunch movie,

25:27

Man of Steel. Snyder

25:29

talked about it at Comic Con the year before. I

25:32

do know Superman is a big responsibility,

25:34

but I kind of felt like, you

25:36

know, Superman needed to sort of be reintroduced

25:40

to like a generation. And I thought this was a

25:43

great opportunity to do something awesome. So Snyder

25:47

was a successful director who specialized in comics

25:49

and horror films.

25:51

He drew big audiences with his war epic 300. This

25:53

is Sparta.

25:58

He was a visual stylist who relished each

26:00

kill and compound fracture. Aah!

26:04

Aah! Aah! But

26:07

Snyder's ultra-violent aesthetic also

26:09

made him polarizing. A

26:13

lot of fans and critics had a big problem with Snyder's

26:15

take on Superman and Man of Steel. They

26:18

were outraged over the violence,

26:20

including a scene where Superman,

26:22

the defender of truth, justice and

26:24

the American way, snaps

26:27

a villain's neck.

26:34

Some fans were shocked and confused.

26:37

It's just, it's not Superman. And

26:41

of all the comic book characters,

26:44

the one that has an absolute

26:47

commitment to a code against

26:49

killing is Superman. What

26:52

are we watching? What is this, you know? And

26:54

then all of a sudden, everything was just dark

26:57

and everything was serious. And everything

26:59

was like that dark, serious,

27:02

um, yeah,

27:04

dark and serious. I

27:07

was in the theater and I was like, what the hell am I

27:09

watching right now? I was

27:11

sitting there and I was like, literally, what is this?

27:14

So...

27:17

Man of Steel took the Superman myth very seriously.

27:21

What would it really be like if an alien with god-like

27:24

powers landed on Earth? It

27:26

was a stark contrast to Marvel style, which

27:29

liberally sprinkles in-jokes and goofy antics

27:31

between the comic book action.

27:34

One Snyder fan told me why she loved

27:36

his approach. It's grounded

27:38

in a way that makes the audience

27:41

look at themselves as if to say,

27:43

what would happen if

27:45

these mythical superheroes existed

27:48

in a world that's as close to a parallel as our

27:50

own as can

27:50

be. Man of Steel

27:53

was pretty big at the box office. Not

27:56

Marvel big, but Warner

27:58

decided it was big enough to use

27:59

it as a springboard for a new

28:02

cinematic universe, one that

28:04

would compete with Marvel Studios.

28:09

But it didn't announce the plan the way Marvel

28:11

typically did. For Marvel,

28:14

announcing a new film slate was a spectacle presided

28:16

over by the studio's high priest, Kevin

28:19

Feige. Here he is at Comic

28:22

Con in 2014.

28:45

The build up to Warner's big DC announcement

28:47

that same year was a bit

28:50

different.

28:56

It took place at an investor meeting.

29:08

Instead of revealing DC's new slate of movies

29:10

to people who'd be most excited, the

29:12

fans, their

29:14

CEO broke the news to Wall Street investors and

29:16

analysts. And it wasn't exactly

29:19

a thrilling presentation. When

29:37

Marvel announced the slate, those films were usually

29:39

well along in development.

29:41

They pretty much all came out as planned. But

29:44

DC's slate was more aspirational.

29:47

And Diane says there was nobody whose sole

29:50

job was to make it a reality. The

29:53

idea of a slate just felt like

29:56

window dressing. The bottom line

29:58

is there was never thoughtful, well-controlled,

30:04

confidential slate

30:07

process. And I think it's the

30:09

single biggest thing that made us look amateurish,

30:14

certainly relative to Marvel, if not just

30:16

on its own. Right. I guess what you're saying

30:18

is that it's not like the scripts were done and

30:21

this was a really fully thought-out plan. Oh,

30:24

far from it. Some of

30:26

the films announced that the investor presentation,

30:28

like Green Lantern and Cyborg, never

30:30

materialized.

30:33

Warner's CEO announced the movies, but

30:35

the responsibility to make them

30:37

largely ended up in the hands of Zack Snyder.

30:41

By 2016, he had set the tone

30:43

for DC's two most famous superheroes,

30:46

with Man of Steel and Batman

30:48

vs. Superman, Dawn of Justice.

30:51

Both films were serious

30:53

and somber and very

30:55

violent. Some fans loved

30:57

them, but others started calling

30:59

Snyder's movies the DC

31:02

Murderverse.

31:05

Unless there were meetings that

31:07

happened that no one told me about, which

31:09

is possible, I

31:12

don't know that there was ever

31:15

any conversation where it was decided

31:17

that Zack would be

31:20

leading the DC slate

31:23

for any particular period of

31:25

time. So even if

31:27

it wasn't a conscious decision that Zack Snyder

31:29

was our Kevin Feige, that,

31:32

you know, from a consumer standpoint, that's kind

31:34

of what happened for a while there. There's

31:37

a place for Zack's movies and I

31:39

would have always wanted Zack

31:41

to be a part of the DC filmmaker

31:43

lineup. But should

31:46

he have been the one defining that universe?

31:49

Maybe not in hindsight, you

31:51

know, hard questions. Still,

31:54

for better or for worse, Snyder

31:56

was de facto in charge, and

31:58

he was about to set the DC stage. DC Universe in

32:00

stone with its biggest superhero

32:03

movie yet,

32:04

Justice League. DC's

32:07

team-up movie was set for 2017. It

32:10

would unite the company's marquee characters,

32:13

Batman, Superman, The Flash,

32:15

Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman.

32:19

Expectations were big.

32:21

The epic ensemble film would be DC's

32:24

answer to Marvel's Avengers.

32:28

Here's Snyder talking about Justice League on

32:30

a podcast called Pizza Film School. The

32:33

studio was very, they wanted

32:36

Justice League what was where we were going. And

32:39

so... So you knew you had the connective tissue.

32:42

We always had our eye on the Justice League kind of concept,

32:44

you know, as we were working.

32:47

But before Justice League started shooting in 2016,

32:49

Wonder

32:50

executives had some concerns.

32:53

The negative reaction among many fans

32:55

to Snyder's so-called murderverse put

32:57

them on edge.

32:59

Some studio executives seriously considered

33:01

pushing back production of Justice League

33:03

and replacing Snyder.

33:06

But they decided it would be too difficult to revamp

33:08

their Justice League plans at the last second.

33:10

So they kept Snyder.

33:12

They asked for a rewrite of the script though.

33:14

I saw a copy of one of their memos. It

33:17

said Justice League needed to be lighter in tone.

33:20

Quote,

33:21

let's have more fun with the characters. The

33:24

studio also asked to cut a plot involving

33:26

Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne

33:29

and Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane.

33:31

Quote,

33:32

let's eliminate Bruce sleeping with Lois and

33:35

getting her pregnant.

33:37

It has the potential to be very badly

33:39

received.

33:40

End quote. Despite

33:42

those changes, when Warner executives saw

33:44

Snyder's first rough cut,

33:46

they were not happy. We

33:48

reached out to Snyder for this podcast, but he

33:51

declined to comment. Here's

33:53

Diane Nelson again.

33:54

opportunity

34:00

for more heart and humor and

34:02

then oh, you know, we're gonna bring

34:04

in another director to help

34:08

Another director

34:09

but not just any director Joss

34:12

Whedon Whedon was known for

34:14

mixing humor with action But

34:16

the thing he really had going for him Joss

34:19

Whedon directed Avengers a very

34:21

movie whose success DC was looking to replicate

34:24

My characterization is Joss was a

34:26

bit of a shiny penny during a

34:28

time when they were looking

34:30

for something shiny to grab on to

34:34

After the bulk of filming on Justice League ended

34:37

Whedon began helping with rewrites that

34:39

soon escalated to being present for reshoots

34:42

Then in the spring of 2017 Snyder stepped

34:45

away from Justice League following a family tragedy

34:49

We didn't took over the reshoots himself One

34:52

movie two very different directors

34:54

When

34:56

Justice League hit theaters in November 2017 fans

35:00

like Anthony Amesta were perplexed You

35:04

could definitely tell the difference between

35:06

Whedon and Snyder and

35:08

their style It felt like a sandwich

35:11

of a movie. It was just kind

35:13

of a mess

35:17

Another DC fan Matthew L There

35:31

was a lot of mishmash and bits and bobs Batman is very

35:33

gritty How many

35:36

of you are there not enough

35:38

and then you jump right into What bothered me is there's

35:41

a scene in the film where you get Superman

35:43

flinging Batman into a car And

35:48

Batman goes on to say Something's

35:54

definitely bleeding

35:55

and it's just so conflicting and

35:57

that's not Batman

35:58

It wasn't just the fans

35:59

complaining.

36:01

Ben Affleck played Batman in Justice League

36:03

and often champions Snyder's work. But

36:06

he told the press that production on the mashup

36:08

film was, quote, awful.

36:11

Here he is in an interview with GQ. Sometimes

36:14

things sort of work in jail and sometimes they

36:16

just, you know, you

36:18

seem to be just having one problem after another, you

36:20

know.

36:21

Several Warner Brothers executives, including

36:24

Diane, were displeased with the movie.

36:27

Yeah, I mean, I thought the

36:30

final film was

36:33

terrible. Yeah,

36:35

I mean, I would have much

36:39

preferred a darker

36:42

than I wanted or

36:44

longer than I'd hoped for Zack

36:46

Snyder cut than the Frankenstein

36:49

cut we got in theaters.

36:51

The Trinity characters of Batman,

36:53

Superman, and Wonder Woman should have,

36:56

by any measure, blown any other superhero

36:58

movie away. And they didn't.

37:01

Justice League roughly broke even, according

37:03

to a former studio executive. But

37:06

it was a huge disappointment for Warner Brothers, given

37:09

the movie's nearly $300 million budget and sky-high

37:12

expectations.

37:14

Justice League was supposed to be DC's Avengers-style

37:17

apex. Instead, it

37:19

was a debacle.

37:22

DC's dream of a cinematic universe

37:24

to rival Marvels

37:25

had flopped.

37:27

At a charity event in April,

37:29

Zack Snyder said his critics failed to understand

37:31

what he was trying to accomplish with his DC

37:34

films. I think, and

37:36

maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of guys or

37:38

a lot of people went into the movie sort of going

37:40

like, oh, it's the superhero romp. Right. Have

37:42

fun with it. Right. You know, and

37:45

we gave them like this sort of hardcore

37:48

deconstructivist, like heavily

37:52

layered, like experiential,

37:55

like superhero, modern

37:59

mythological stuff.

37:59

superhero movie that

38:02

needs a real, you

38:05

really to pay attention to it. And they just, that

38:07

was not cool. That's not a thing anyone wanted to do.

38:12

Warner did have some successes making DC

38:15

movies with other directors.

38:19

2017's Wonder Woman was a hit with fans

38:21

and critics. 2018's Aquaman

38:24

grossed more than $1 billion. So

38:27

did 2019's Joker. And

38:29

its star, Joaquin Phoenix, won

38:31

an Oscar.

38:33

But overall, DC's output was spotty,

38:35

with at least as many flops as hits. The

38:38

best known superheroes in comics couldn't

38:40

save them.

38:45

What do you think, looking back, were the positives

38:48

and negatives of this setup for DC Entertainment?

38:51

There are so many things I would do

38:53

differently. I certainly

38:56

think

38:57

that DC would

38:59

have benefited, the company

39:01

would have benefited much more strongly

39:04

had DC been its own entity,

39:07

independent entity with its own ability

39:10

to mandate and set a slate

39:12

and a vision for its properties. Whomever

39:15

ran it, it needed to report

39:17

to the CEO and it, I believe,

39:20

should have been set up independently

39:22

the way Marvel was with

39:25

its own budgets and so forth.

39:30

Feige and Marvel had made the cinematic universe

39:32

look easy, but DC's

39:34

struggles showed that execution mattered

39:36

more than the best intentions and

39:38

the best known characters.

39:41

Even a DC fan like me had to

39:43

admit it. Marvel had won this

39:45

round in the clash of the cinematic universes.

39:54

But inside Marvel, it wasn't exactly

39:56

a time of celebration.

39:58

Because even as a studio dominated,

39:59

the global box office. Internally,

40:02

it was descending into

40:05

a civil war. A war

40:07

between creative mastermind Kevin Feige and

40:10

his budget minded boss Ike Perlmutter.

40:14

Their power struggle

40:16

would change the course of Marvel's future. It

40:19

got to the point where Kevin Feige started to get pretty

40:21

annoyed and he would push back.

40:24

And there was a sense that someone had

40:26

been ripped out. This family had been separated.

40:28

It was like a divorce. I thankfully like a

40:30

divorce.

40:31

That's next time on the final episode

40:34

of With Great Power.

40:38

With Great Power is part of The Journal, which

40:41

is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. This

40:44

series was reported and hosted by me, Ben

40:46

Fritz. This episode was produced by Matt

40:48

Kwang, with help from Alan Rodriguez Espinoza,

40:51

Lisa Wang, John Sanders, Pierre

40:53

Singhe and Catherine Schuchnecht. The

40:55

series is edited by Catherine Brewer and Annie Baxter.

40:59

Fact-checking by Najwa Jamal and

41:01

Nicole Pasulka. Sound design and mixing

41:03

by Griffin Tanner. The music in this episode

41:06

is by Bobby Lord, Peter Leonard, Griffin

41:08

Tanner, Lou Dot Sessions and Epidemic

41:10

Sound. Our theme music is by So

41:12

Wily and remixed by Nathan Singapak. Special

41:16

thanks to Maria Byrne, Kate Limebaugh, Annie

41:18

Minoff, Laura Morris, Sarah

41:20

Platt, Sarah Rabel, Ethan Smith

41:23

and Catherine Whelan. And shout

41:25

out to Native Son in LA for letting us record Marvel Trivia Night. Thanks

41:30

for listening.

41:31

Check out the next and final episode in our series, coming

41:34

out Sunday.

41:43

And when I think back to my younger years, my

41:45

pining in college and high school and what I felt

41:48

and how I was the only person that liked

41:50

any of this, I was like a jazz aficionado.

41:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like, yeah,

41:55

so

41:56

and now it's everywhere. Yeah, if

41:58

we could only be in high school now. we'd be so much more

42:00

popular than we were, right? I

42:04

doubt it. I'm sorry, I was thinking about that thought.

42:06

No, no, it wouldn't be the same. No, okay.