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shadowkat1. Yes, I know everyone is bored of the Whedon thing. But, this is kind of interesting. I found it finally on Twitter - it's about what lay behind the whole CC reveal, and those who followed. Hint - it wasn't about Buffy or the Marvel movies or for that matter, The Nevers. No, it is about Whedon's long running attempt to get into the DC film verse after leaving the Marvel film verse.
Or rather it's about the Zack Snyder Justice League film that Whedon took over. I don't know if you saw the Whedon version? I did. Or read about what was happening behind the scenes at the time - I did. Or saw all the films in the DC verse prior - I did. I'm a fan of superhero flicks and superhero comics, goes back to my college days, when I discovered the medium. I remember doing my thesis next to a guy in a library basement - typing away at computers in the 1989. The guy basically looked like Billy Idol except with curly hair. It was the 1980s and he was into punk rock and comics. He was doing his thesis on the death of the superhero in the graphic novel medium, specifically Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, Red Son, and the Watchmen. I'd read all three - we had a very long discussion about it. This was long before we got good superhero flicks.
Anyhow, I've read a lot of the comics here and there, and seen all of the films in the franchise. With a few exceptions here and there. Also a good portion of the animated ones (not all, but a portion) and a portion of the television series.
Snyder had a mixed reviews - Snyder is a painter. His background is in high art. And he's a director - dealing mainly with visuals and FX. He also works in film - as most directors do, not digitial. Prefers film.
Watching a Snyder film is akin to watching a painting. Or being immersed in a visual world. His films often work best on a big screen. He's not really a writer - Nolan's brother tends to write Snyder's films, he's a director first and foremost - and works very well with people. The cast on Snyder's films - were his friends. His battles were with the WB, Geoff Johns (the comic book writer) and the studio heads - who wanted him to cut his film down to size, lighten it up a bit, etc.
What happened? Snyder's daughter died by suicide and he got tired of fighting the WB, and put his family first. The rest of the story is...appalling to say the least. And complicated.
You can find it HERE. It does not show various film critics, comic artists, comic fans, Whedon fans, Whedon, WB or comic writers in the best light. They basically took advantage of someone else's tragic loss for their own personal gain. It is appalling. They also lied about it.
It's an interesting read - because it shows how difficult the film industry can be and why so many go off and do their own things.
At any rate - there's apparently a Snyder Cut of Justice League premiering on HBO MAXtonight - ETA, misread, it's dropping 3/18/2021 - March. It's four hours long. And none of it includes Whedon's footage. Also, only five minutes of it were shot during the pandemic and after 2017. And Whedon's version only contained five 30 minutes of the original Zack Snyder cut - which is possibly why - the re-shoot was hell on wheels - because they basically re-shot the entire movie in less than four months. Cutting everything they did previously. After already shooting and working their asses off on the previous version. AND - various actors ended up with their scenes cut completely. It was - if you can imagine - shooting an entire movie over two years, only to have the director you've bonded with - get fired after his daughter died from suicide - and have a new director that you don't know jump in and throw his weight around. Force you to work hard and long hours, and say lines that you don't feel were in character, and do it in breakneck time, and act as if everything you did the past two years was pointless.
I'd have wanted to skewer Whedon and the WB for that alone. I don't blame the cast for hating them. Add to that - Whedon's version bombed, and the actors struggled afterwards. Plus the anticipated sequel was cancelled.
Now, finally, they get to see the version they worked hard on and were proud of - air. (They spent years trying to get to this point. The previous film aired in 2017.)
I can't see it tonight, but I'll try to see it over the weekend. I'm curious. Although - I'm not really a huge fan of Snyder's films - they give me a headache - all the fight scenes are like paintings, but also feel like watching a video game. So we'll see if I make it through it.
The twitter feeds mentioned Chris Helmsworth has been indicating issues with Whedon for years. So I looked.
Recalls Joss Whedons fury when Avengers Cast Kept Screwing up a Take
I think writers make bad directors for the most part.
2. Winter Storm and Texas Power Outage Map
Texas wanted its own power Grid to avoid the Federal Government - Now What?
Ted Cruz is not having a good year. Nor for that matter is Texas.
But I feel for my poor family members. I have three cousins, their kids, and youngest Aunt in Texas. I'd prefer that they be okay. So far they are.
3. Footloose or Dancing in the Movies
Off to bed. Assuming they quiet down upstairs. It is quiet. It just sounds like someone is moving furniture above me every once and a while.
Or rather it's about the Zack Snyder Justice League film that Whedon took over. I don't know if you saw the Whedon version? I did. Or read about what was happening behind the scenes at the time - I did. Or saw all the films in the DC verse prior - I did. I'm a fan of superhero flicks and superhero comics, goes back to my college days, when I discovered the medium. I remember doing my thesis next to a guy in a library basement - typing away at computers in the 1989. The guy basically looked like Billy Idol except with curly hair. It was the 1980s and he was into punk rock and comics. He was doing his thesis on the death of the superhero in the graphic novel medium, specifically Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, Red Son, and the Watchmen. I'd read all three - we had a very long discussion about it. This was long before we got good superhero flicks.
Anyhow, I've read a lot of the comics here and there, and seen all of the films in the franchise. With a few exceptions here and there. Also a good portion of the animated ones (not all, but a portion) and a portion of the television series.
Snyder had a mixed reviews - Snyder is a painter. His background is in high art. And he's a director - dealing mainly with visuals and FX. He also works in film - as most directors do, not digitial. Prefers film.
Watching a Snyder film is akin to watching a painting. Or being immersed in a visual world. His films often work best on a big screen. He's not really a writer - Nolan's brother tends to write Snyder's films, he's a director first and foremost - and works very well with people. The cast on Snyder's films - were his friends. His battles were with the WB, Geoff Johns (the comic book writer) and the studio heads - who wanted him to cut his film down to size, lighten it up a bit, etc.
What happened? Snyder's daughter died by suicide and he got tired of fighting the WB, and put his family first. The rest of the story is...appalling to say the least. And complicated.
You can find it HERE. It does not show various film critics, comic artists, comic fans, Whedon fans, Whedon, WB or comic writers in the best light. They basically took advantage of someone else's tragic loss for their own personal gain. It is appalling. They also lied about it.
It's an interesting read - because it shows how difficult the film industry can be and why so many go off and do their own things.
At any rate - there's apparently a Snyder Cut of Justice League premiering on HBO MAX
I'd have wanted to skewer Whedon and the WB for that alone. I don't blame the cast for hating them. Add to that - Whedon's version bombed, and the actors struggled afterwards. Plus the anticipated sequel was cancelled.
Now, finally, they get to see the version they worked hard on and were proud of - air. (They spent years trying to get to this point. The previous film aired in 2017.)
I can't see it tonight, but I'll try to see it over the weekend. I'm curious. Although - I'm not really a huge fan of Snyder's films - they give me a headache - all the fight scenes are like paintings, but also feel like watching a video game. So we'll see if I make it through it.
The twitter feeds mentioned Chris Helmsworth has been indicating issues with Whedon for years. So I looked.
Recalls Joss Whedons fury when Avengers Cast Kept Screwing up a Take
I think writers make bad directors for the most part.
2. Winter Storm and Texas Power Outage Map
Texas wanted its own power Grid to avoid the Federal Government - Now What?
Ted Cruz is not having a good year. Nor for that matter is Texas.
But I feel for my poor family members. I have three cousins, their kids, and youngest Aunt in Texas. I'd prefer that they be okay. So far they are.
3. Footloose or Dancing in the Movies
Off to bed. Assuming they quiet down upstairs. It is quiet. It just sounds like someone is moving furniture above me every once and a while.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-07 04:26 pm (UTC)In answer to your question: Occasionally. Although if I do I'll make sure to find the early stuff.
Or Jon Faverau - Jon wrote for Obama, and is a top actor and director, and started the franchise with Iron Man. (I just finished Obama's Promised Land and he mentions him.)
I remember Jon from... 2008? That whole election was like a fandom. :)
They had real issues with the actress, which unfortunately hurt her later. That doesn't excuse how Whedon handled it. But, CC wasn't completely blameless either.
I was sort of thinking more generally (although that obviously did not come across) - how phrases might have an aspect of truth and yet become a shorthand for something else. So an actress who is 'difficult to work with' can genuinely be difficult, but it's more of a way to describe someone who is unofficially blacklisted. Like how 'economic anxiety' is used for Trump voters, or 'Wants to spend more time with his family' for a politician caught having an affair who decides to resign. Whatever their literal meaning, phrases like that come with connotations and can't be taken at face value. (We've yet to finish Bojack, but one of the story lines is about this very thing. The actress in question IS 'difficult to work with, but it's much more complex than that.) Like you say, it's never black or white.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-07 05:50 pm (UTC)It can be. Depends. Both male and female actors get that label. But some aren't black-listed because of it. Also, honestly, some of them deserve it - because they are insane idiots. My brother way back in the 1990s when he was a film major, worked with his girlfriend (who later became his wife) on one of her uncle's films. Her uncle was fixing a film that was a mess, and re-shooting various scenes. Scean Young, an actress who had managed to get the rep of being difficult was on the film. My brother said that she was just nuts. He had fill a bath tub with ice on a set with various wires and electrical equipment - so she could get into the ice cold water in order to get into character. He said she was nice enough, just impossible to work with.
Also, both Shannon Dougherty and Kathryn Heigle struggled with that rep. Dougherty couldn't get along with various female cast members on both 90210 and Charmed (she had feud with Alyssa Milano). Heigle got blacklisted by Shondra Rhimes (Heigle declined an Emmy nomination for Grey's Anatomy one year stating the writing for her character wasn't good enough for her to get the nomination) and Judd Apatow (Heigle refused to do various scenes stating they made her uncomfortable or were sexist - I'd agree with that assessment - I hated Knocked Up), both bigger names than Whedon. She did kind of rise above it though and got a lot of really good roles here and there, but had bad luck in none of them taking off. She's on a series now on Netflix.
CC unlike Heigel isn't that talented. She just doesn't have the acting chops. Also I don't think Whedon blacklisted her - so much as Fox and the WB, they were the ones who wanted her gone -so my guess is that the studios blacklisted her. When you have not one but two studios put out the word that they don't want to work with you - then you got a problem. [The actors who got television series after Buffy - all got them through contracts with television studios - notably Fox. Fox was the studio behind Buffy and Angel, and Fox owned all the rights to both shows, while WB was the distributor. Fox had development deals with Whedon, Minear, and various writers on those shows. And it had development deals with David Boreanze, Alyson Hannigan, and Eliza Dusku. The big money is in television development deals.]
Getting blacklisted by a television show-runner isn't that big a deal. Because you can avoid them. They come and go. But getting blacklisted by a studio is a problem and always has been.
You have to have a lot of talent to past that. The one's who have are movie stars. And even those... Ridely Scott erased Kevin Spacey from a movie that he was in, and replaced him with Christopher Plummer. Johnny Depp has been dropped from various films now, as has Armie Hammer. All are now on the proverbial blacklist. They got blacklisted by the audience. Mel Gibson has had similar problems.
Directors have it easier - as do writers, since they are less likely to get blacklisted by the audience. But once the audience or popular opinion blacklists you - you're dead.
Going back to CC? I remember Marsters stating how surprised he was - in an interview. He'd heard nothing but bad things about her on both Buffy and Angel, he'd never worked with her before Supernatural. And hadn't interacted with her until the conventions. He said she was a pleasure to work with on Supernatural and had no idea why she'd gotten such a bad rep. But their Supernatural gig was at least five years after Buffy/Angel had ended. And I think CC learned a lot from the previous experience. And how to deal with television direction, marks, and lines. Buffy was really just her second television series. She has thanked Gellar for teaching her how to do it on Buffy, and David for his help on Angel since they aired.
At any rate - I really think Fox and WB were the problem, not so much Whedon. Because it wasn't just Whedon who was toxic. Greenwalt was doing things he shouldn't have been doing, actually from what I understand they all were. And that's on the studio - the studio is responsible for casting, running the set, and keeping everyone safe. As are the producers. The show-runner reports to the studio.