By Alec Rellora | Staff writer
Recently, in the tentatively titled Batman vs. Superman, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. has announced Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, leading many to wonder about the DC Cinematic Universe’s future.
I don’t have many quarrels against Gadot playing Wonder Woman, I’m sure she’ll bulk up and I haven’t really seen much of her acting, so I’m cautiously optimistic about her. Although, I do find it annoying that she was chosen over the more highly qualified Jamie Alexander, but I digress.
I don’t like how Warner Bros. announced this movie as a Man of Steel sequel but treats it as if it were a Justice League movie. Especially with rumors of Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter going through the casting process, it feels like they are shoehorning in these characters to supplement the amount of superheroes that the The Avengers: Age of Ultron is going to have in the same competing year of 2015. While I believe competition can definitely birth innovation, I believe it can also have an adverse effect on innovation and originality.
I’m not saying that Warner Bros. and DC Comics should follow The Avengers model, but I don’t feel comfortable introducing any characters besides Batman in a movie titled Batman vs. Superman. Even with the addition of Batman, I was a bit wary, but the unique relationship between the two quelled my feelings. It was when Wonder Woman was announced that I began to worry.
The beauty of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers world, was that each individual character was established by different movies with different writers and different directors. This allowed each character to develop differently and have their own unique takes that clashed beautifully once they all met. With the DC Cinematic Universe, all of the writing and development is being controlled by Zack Snyder and David S. Goyer. This may work to their advantage and allow consistency between each character’s story and definitely gives them more room to mess with each character’s origin to make a more cohesive cinematic universe. On the other hand, it may take away the unique clash that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had. I mean, if each character is introduced and developed by Snyder, then a lapse of creativity may follow as a result of having each character come from the same creative mind vs. having several different creative minds work on team building.
It is especially troubling seeing that Snyder didn’t really do an A+ job in character development on Man of Steel. It felt like every character is together just because they are supposed to. The Clark and Lois relationship felt uncomfortably forced, so I feel that Snyder should work on the Man of Steel characters before bringing in other people, especially when these other people are going to be the Justice League.
Lastly, adding all these superheroes takes away the excitement in waiting to see these characters get together if you initially see them all meet in the “Man of Steel” sequel. I wanna see Wonder Woman in the fully developed Amazon and wonder to myself, “how is Batman and Superman gonna react to her?” Or, “how will they fit this into the universe built in Man of Steel?”
When I first heard of the Man of Steel sequel, I was hoping for a full blown Superman movie, especially since Superman was mostly learning to be Superman in Man of Steel. With all that being said, I’m hopeful I’ll still be the first in that theater with my cape, cowl, and Batman shirt on, anxiously waiting for the DC Comics logo to appear with ominous music composed by Hans Zimmer playing as Batman vs. Superman begins.