As expected, Blue Beetle has bombed, falling short of even Shazam 2's anemic opener (25 vs 30). As I went through back in March, the film is the last from the Ann Sarnoff regime that was left untouched when Discovery bought WB. While I can imagine an iteration of this character that works (a smaller budget and based on the 80s version of the IP), Sarnoff saddled us with a family drama with all the baggage of the current superhero era. It's only hope was to hit it big with American Latinos (the targeted audience), but the pandering hasn't worked (unlike with Disney's bomb Encanto). Are there any lessons learned by the current James Gunn regime? It doesn't look like it, as we'll get into below.
The disaster of James Gunn's tenure as the head of DC continues (the guy has to be more careful with what he says to the media). After revealing in December that he wasn't bringing back Henry Cavill because of his age, he began to change the narrative in January and now says he's not writing a film for a younger Superman. Why put yourself in this position? Why lie at the outset and have to walk it back? This comes off the heels of 'is he or is he not' bringing back Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman which followed endless praising of Ezra Miller despite the The Mad Goose Wizard's innumerable issues (cf). My belief is Gunn has no plan. Nothing definitive, just ideas. I thought he was a poor pick as an executive (that includes when he was going to helm 'Cosmic Marvel' for Kevin Feige) and there's no evidence that he understands or could create a good Superman story. Most people's impression of him is the first Guardians film, a story written by someone else and whose success he can't replicate. His 'true form', as it were, is The Suicide Squad, a boring bomb that's less memorable than David Ayer's mess years earlier (I'll take a bad B-movie over an unfunny comedy any day).
Flipping over to the MCU, rumours about dumping terrible writers are floating around. One comes from the reputable Jeff Sneider, which is that Ant-Man 3 writer Jeff Loveness had been dumped from co-writing the next Avengers films. More interestingly, if on less solid ground, K. C. Walsh (who is a friend of scoopers rather than a scooper himself) claims the laughable Michael Waldron (Loki/Doctor Strange 2) has also been dumped from that project. Both writers are terrible, so if true their departures are a blessing, but it's highly probable Kevin Feige (if given the freedom) will find folks equally as awful to fill their shoes.
One Piece EP Marty Adelstein just realized that 1+1=2 saying, in light of Cowboy Bebop bombing (cf), "we learned is the fans are expecting you to be true to the source material." No shit Sherlock. Apparently Adelstein never looked at the box office for The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) or the Harry Potter films (2001-11). In fairness to Adelstein, he's hamstrung by ESG obligations, but it's still funny to hear comments like this from people in power.
I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 most of this month and thoroughly enjoying it--the game feels like Dragon Age prior to their safe approach in Inquisition (2014). I bring it up here because of comments from former DA writer David Gaider who said (in reference to the character Lae'zel):
"The Dragon Age fandom consistently gave WAY more latitude and forgiveness to male as opposed to female characters, in every game. ... Fandom has always treated male characters with more forgiveness - full stop."
Gaider makes no effort to justify his position because, in his mind, none is needed. The opinion has been handed down to him from on high and questioning it is a sign that you are ignorant and an ideological enemy. His comment (even if you agree with it) is worthless because it doesn't actually address the issue which is why this specific character doesn't resonate with (some) fans? The notion that the problem is tied to gender is absurd on its face. The worthwhile exploration would be digging into the specifics of the character (my two cents is that all the BG3 characters are fairly thin 'types' and, lacking depth, so are judged on their dominant characteristics). This kind of rhetorical shorthand by privileged people like Gaider is dismissive, divisive and unhelpful.
Speaking of divisive, I wanted to look at something that Randall Park said, not because I'm interested in Park (who is an unremarkable character actor), but because it neatly encapsulates an underlying belief shared in Hollywood (and to a lesser extent some in the public):
"I feel like, just in general, this industry is taking the wrong lessons. For example, Barbie is this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No. Make more movies by and about women!" and "Asians folks have some of the worst representation in Hollywood by the numbers, and it’s never made sense to me because studios are courting the Asian box office, which is almost as big as the North American box office. But it feels like Asians aren’t really allowed to complain about that because of the whole ‘model minority’ thing"
Let's quickly go over Park's assumptions:
- The entertainment industry is underrepresented by films made by and about women. This is a quantitative argument, with the idea being if 50% (or more) films fit that paradigm lives (or at least women's lives) would be measurably better. This is a false equivalency (if just having representation made things better, we'd already be living in a better society--how many people are watching the WNBA?--instead the aggressive application of this approach has lead to further divisiveness). There's an underlying sexism and racism in Park's comment as he implies only women can write for women and that women can only relate to a character if she's from her own ethnic group--this has never been true (ask the Japanese about Anne of Green Gables). It's a sign of how little critical thinking Park is engaged in when talking like this
- Representation can be assessed by volume (the higher the density of diverse group X, the better): as I said above, forced diversity seems to make race relations worse; Park is also part of a minority group that's near the top of the economic pyramid (cf; for those unaware, Indian-Americans (not to be confused with Natives) are at the top in the US, UK, and Canada). Park is using 'Asian' to mean East and Southeast Asians (not West, South, or the forgotten North Asians--I doubt Park is concerned with the Russian representation from North Asia). How has diverse casting helped the African-American community (the most commonly inserted group)? Not at all (see the economic list). This problem is unrelated to skin colour (as should be already be obvious), as many Caribbean and African populations in the US do better than white Americans (as, indeed, do all the Asians in Park's sense of the term)
- Courting the Asian box office means you should cast more Asians (in the 'Asian' sense of the above, although I can assure you none of those varied groups see themselves as interchangeable): we have to read between the lines, but given Park's understanding of 'Asian' he means the Chinese box office and he's missing the point that they don't need 'Asians' in them to be popular--what audiences want are entertaining films (this seems obvious, but Park clearly doesn't understand the qualitative difference between Ant-Man 3 and The Avengers)
- Asians can't complain: this isn't true at all, as there are innumerable Asians (including Park himself) who complain. The problem is, Park's ethnic group (Korean) is doing extremely well in the entertainment industry and he's in the fortunate position where his culture is broadly popular and has an extremely successful entertainment industry (as do Japan, China, and India for that matter). Korea doesn't need to be pandered too--they export their culture--and I highly doubt Park is demanding Korean films to be more diverse (however amusing it would be to have Jada Pinkett Smith do a Psy biopic where he's a black woman)
Why is Park complaining? I think it's twofold. 1) Park himself isn't being offered the roles he believes he should be, 2) These ideas are what he hears repeatedly from his colleagues and peer group--Park is repeating talking points without thinking critically about them.
This article was written by Peter Levi
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