I feel like movies like this are just a way to forcibly revive those dead IPs so they can desperately spam them to shit and wonder why no one cares. It's only using IPs people know to forcibly revive those ones.
Or they're just creatively bankrupt and rely on nostalgia-baiting without understanding what made the nostalgia memorable to begin with.
These corporate suits calling the shots for these cinematic universes just don't get it. All they saw was the success of Marvel and wanted to jump in without a plan, and without studying why it was so successful.
One of the main reason Epic Mickey was as good as it was story-wise is because Warren Spector directed it and was given access to the Disney Vault to do so.
Warner Brothers have no idea what to do with making a franchise. They have been dooming their IPs and making them rush to make something big happen with no build up or interest from audiences. One of the big problems in my option is it never feels earned and won't let any of their IPs build up organically. They see the success of Marvel but don't want to put in the time and effort to have that buildup to events people will pay for. The corporate suits want money in the short term instead of building up something big in the long term. If you want to make something like Marvel did, you need build interest with the audience, put in time and effort, and an interesting/fun story line to follow in order to get there. You also need a producer (i.e .Kevin Feige) to manage it all to be cohesive. The first 5 movies that Marvel did give them decent returns but it wasn't until they built it up slow to make the Avengers that they started to make crazy returns on the investment of them. Something that Warner Brothers suits would never take a chance on.
It's actually a very simple thing to do looking back at the MCU, which I can't understand for the life of me why Warner Bros. doesn't know this. They just rushed the DCEU without developing characters and testing the waters. Why do you think War Machine and Hulk were recast in the MCU? Nothing was set and stone at that point. And for all things considered now, the MCU isn't perfect (
Captain Marvel), but it's very serviceable as a franchise.
The first problem was trying to get Christopher Nolan to head the DCEU, leading to the whole "real" and "dark" tone this "franchise" initially had. Nolan was clearly burnt out after The Dark Knight Trilogy, which worked because Batman was probably the most realistic and grounded when compared to other DC heroes, and in terms of Bruce Wayne, his associates and the villains. That magic can't work on something like Superman or Wonder Woman because you're talking about a world with aliens and cyborgs and mystical creatures. It's actually kinda disgraceful putting his name as a producer credit for all the DCEU films.
The second problem was having Zack Snyder head the DCEU. Clearly, he didn't have much knowledge of the DC Universe, unlike Kevin Feige, who was chosen because he was knowledgeable of the Marvel Comics. He also is a hack in many ways, and is more concern with visuals than storytelling. He wants to make things grounded, but he already made
Watchmen.
The third problem(s) were
Man of Steel,
Dawn of Justice and
Suicide Squad. I could care less for
Man of Steel and
Dawn of Justice was a fucking mess.
Man of Steel caused some people to not like Superman because of the damage he helped cause to Metropolis.
Dawn of Justice was a pretentious fanboy meme film, building up stuff with no payoff, turning Lex Luthor into an autist, and setting up a film ("Lois Lane is the key!") that never happened, or flimsily happened.
Suicide Squad was a bloated mess. The editing is terrible. The Joker was terrible. A lot of these characters could have been cut from the film. And the whole purpose of the Suicide Squad has been bungled to what it would make more sense for them to see. The Suicide Squad don't save the world. They're mercenaries the government hired to kill political enemies or do activities that the government doesn't want to be seen doing.
Assault on Arkham was a better Suicide Squad film than
Suicide Squad.
The fourth problem was not making standalone films for Batman, Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg. It would have really helped like these characters instead of slapping them on Wonder Woman's laptop for 10 seconds each.
And then there's
Justice League, which was an abomination. A fucking abomination.
The suits are completely devoid of long-term thinking. What matters is quarterly earnings to them.
