'Batman v Superman' Fallout: Producer Charles Roven to Shift Role on DC Movies (Exclusive)

Charles Roven, the veteran producer who has worked on every DC Comics movie at Warner Bros. since 2005’s Batman Begins, is no longer producing certain DC movies, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

Talks are underway to have Roven — who was a producer on Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, as well as the recently completed Suicide Squad and next year's Wonder Woman — segue to a different role going forward, likely that of an executive producer who is not involved in day-to-day production. However, he potentially could continue to be a producer on some sequels to the movies he's currently producing.

The extent of Roven's involvement, and which titles he would work on, is "evolving," according to multiple sources, who also stress that no final decisions have been made.

"Roven is a key member of not only the DC slate but of the Warner Bros. family," says a studio spokesman.

The move comes as Warner Bros. continues to scrutinize its DC movies in the wake of BvS’s so-so performance at the box office and chilly reception from audiences. The movie, released March 25, wrapped its run with $871 million worldwide with a production budget of at least $300 million. While Warners insists the movie will be profitable, it was meant to kick off the studio’s DC cinematic universe with a billion-dollar bang, but instead was met with an unenthusiastic response from fans for being too dark and unheroic.

In stark contrast, Marvel Studios, well into its cinematic universe with 13 movies, has seen outsized success for its similarly themed Captain America: Civil War, which pits its heroes against each other. Civil War has earned raves from fans and critics and has grossed more than $1 billion in about three weeks.

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Warners, which leverages its DC IP across multiple channels, among them publishing and video games, now is taking steps to course-correct its approach as it develops its superhero slate. It recently shuffled its executive ranks to have executive vp Jon Berg and Geoff Johns, DC's chief content officer, co-run the newly created DC Films. It also is seeking to hire a more established director on The Flash (2018) after parting ways with screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith, who initially was attached to make his directorial debut with the project.

Roven, an experienced producer whose career dates back to the 1980s, has a producer credit on the three Batman movies directed by Christopher Nolan and 2013’s Man of Steel. He also is a producer on Suicide Squad, which Warners hopes will re-energize its DC movies when it opens in August, and Wonder Woman, which will be released in June 2017.

Roven has established himself as a savvy player who knows how to manage the armies it takes to make modern, big-budget, visual effects-heavy tentpoles. But he was part of the unofficial brain trust with Snyder on the DC movies, an approach Warners seems to be rethinking in the wake of BvS's less than stellar performance.

One reason for the shift in thinking is that Warners wants to ramp up the number of DC productions, and sources say it would be physically impossible for one man to handle pre-, post- and production on multiple movies in countries and cities ranging from Australia to Los Angeles to Louisiana to London.

Roven was slated to be a producer on Flash and Aquaman, two DC films that have yet to go into production and could end up shooting on opposite ends of the planet. Sources tell THR he will no longer serve in that capacity on those films.

Roven remains on set for Justice League: Part 1, currently shooting in London, although Warners now has sent Berg to also oversee the day-to-day production of that movie.

hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/batman-v-superman-fallout-producer-897071

>Warners relying on Suicide Squad to get everyone back on DC

what are they gonna do it if it flops?

The heads keep on rolling.

Frankly, the resulting possibilities are so bad no one is even considering it, not even Sup Forums.

Release the other DCEU movies they've already started filming and find some way to spin it.
The wait and see policy took too long, so now they've committed to just dumping an avalanche of garbage into theaters before they can figure out no one wants it

>what are they gonna do it if it flops?
>Frankly, the resulting possibilities are so bad no one is even considering it, not even Sup Forums.
This. I am EXPECTING it to be good, because if it isn't then DC films is screwed.

Fire our based Cereal King

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS film

Well, they just need to hold the line until flash. any betting man would think that's the point where Barry does a paradox wherein he changes the dceu into an optimistic world

why does this read like a eulogy?

to me its clearly damage control.
Try and ramp up productions of DC movies to get a cinematic universe established quickly and hope it gets peoples attention and make money

>Genius
None of this couldn't possibly be planned. They didn't expect this reaction from the audience. Now they're trying to course correct the DCEU. As they should...

Oh, they're considering it.

Start making different movies.

They're a studio. If necessary they'll pull an MGM, go into chapter 11 for a couple of years and come out with new management and less stupid ideas.

If not, they'll pull another MGM. Like MGM keep doing.

If he wasn't way out of his depth I'd pity him. He's in so deep he can't possibly not know it.

I'm not expecting Flash or Aquaman to even shoot.

>One reason for the shift in thinking is that Warners wants to ramp up the number of DC productions, and sources say it would be physically impossible for one man to handle pre-, post- and production on multiple movies in countries and cities ranging from Australia to Los Angeles to Louisiana to London.

Confirmed retards not reading article. Despite the spin this is the opposite of a 'fallout' from BvS.

That's why most movies have multiple producers, dink.

*Critics

General audience reaction was positive, critic reaction was not, and the critics reaction is what costed them money, not the general audience reaction.

I really hope Suicide Squad does well because it just looks so fun.

I was gonna let you off with that but hang on, hang on... are you saying, under oath, Mr Anonymous, that Warner Brothers, a large Hollywood studio with over nine decades of experience making movies, would mistakenly assign a single vital producer to multiple movies that would shoot at the same time on opposite sides of the planet?

Because that is just staggeringly incompetent if it's true.

Oh god, imagine if Suicide Squad did underperform. This website would implode.

Okay but have you gotten rid of Snyder yet?

No? Well then I don't give a shit

The possibilities are only good: the end of the DCEU.

It's irredeemably corrupted. Burn it to the ground.

>>General audience reaction was positive,
I'd heavily contest this

MARTHAAAAA is a dank meme on the internet right now and definitely not for the right reasons

That makes no sense. Audiences are the ones who buy the tickets.

Audiences didn't buy tickets because they didn't like it either. Saying general audience reaction was positive is delusional, the kind of delusion that got WB in this mess in the first place by ignoring all the glaring warning signs coming off of Man of Steel.

Reminder that there is no way WB is happy with these numbers, especially investors.

We would cheer. DC hasn't even fired Snyder yet. It hasn't lear

I don't think Deadpool beating it domestic helped either

>In stark contrast, Marvel Studios,
>stark

youtube.com/watch?v=DrQcNwsjVEQ&feature=youtu.be

And the only reason BvS pulled in even that was because DC moved it away from CW's opening weekend into a release dead zone, hid it from critics until the last minute, hyped pre-sales to the max, and simultaneously opened everywhere. DC knew it had a bomb and did an admirable job of salvaging it as much as it could.

I feel that at this point warne are going to fire/relocate everyone bar Zack the hack and still wonder why their movies are critically panned.

Man could you imagine if they 'didn't' simultaneously open it everywhere? Like they had it release like a regular movie? Oh god, it would have been terrible

"Well we've got Affleck producing, Johns higher up and fired most of our other staff. What could possibly be missing here?"
[Snyder collecting skulls in the background]
"What could be missing?"

I think it would slowly remove Snyder's control on the movie. Anyways he already said he could be his last comics movie

>zack snyder still attached

MEME
A
G
I
C

Sounds like they're doing what Disney did and are cleaning house. Snyder might be axed if any of the pre-JL movies do good and WB takes one of those directors and attaches them to it.

make more animated movies

At this point I think the only thing can save the DCCU if Suicide Squad fails is introducing a twist that this cinematic universe was never intended to emulate the normal DC superheroes universe, but rather be a live-action interpretation of the Justice Lords/InJustice universe, where most of the world is under the totalitarian control of despotic Superhumans. (Which would also help contextualize Batman's murderspree and Clark's stupidity in the past two movies)

They need to Flashpoint/CIIE this shit like immediately. If they get to JL Part 2, it's the only way to save it

Man, I cant help but get depressed after the BvS debacle, and I dread to think what will happen if SS flops. If WB turns it all around from here, can we just pretend both MoS and Bvs were just one long mess of a movie?

The legal/PR mess to detach him at this point pretty much ensures his involvement for the time being.

No, because I loved MoS.

In a perfect world we could have used the Crime Syndicate in a fun way instead of a bailout. Even hire previous actors to fill the doppelganger roles
>Power Ring Reynolds
>Owlman Bale
>Ultraman Routh

MoS wasn't that bad, even though I had problems with it.

Ok that did sound kind of harsh, but I was referring more to it being a rocky start to this entire Universe

It CAN'T flop. The scrutiny and worry would compound exponentially.

I can't even imagine the reaction if it flops.

And he'll be attached forever because they were idiots and basically handed everything over to his production company. God knows how the Snyders managed to pull that off, but they're fucking geniuses

I just realized that a name change and a throwaway shot of a Gotham City Casino could have made Snyder's Batman make so much more goddamn sense.

The Batman of BvS could have been Thomas Wayne. Thomas Wayne gave very few shits about his violent ways of vigilantism. Thomas Wayne loved guns.

Plus, a lot of the edginess in Earth-2 meshes better with MoS/BvS.

You really think the non-comic book audience would accept that? You'd basically be playing the "it was all a dream card"

SS isn't going to "flop", I mean I don't think it really can financially flop, but if it fucks itself over critically while losing/not even getting to another Marvel film, heads are gonna roll

I'm not even going to pretend the WW movie will help. That's shit's dead on arrival, not because of the content but because they had the genius idea to open it against Transformers 5

>what are they gonna do it if it flops?

At this point I don't think anything could stop the gravy train. What are they going to do, halt production on the three movies in production right now?

>>At this point I don't think anything could stop the gravy train.
I remember hearing this regarding Sony and the ASM franchise

Stopping is the only thing worse. It's just movie math.

It's more profitable to release a cadre of disappointing movies that make back some money, than spending all that money on production and hiring, than going full stop and making nothing back.

>transformers 5
Thanks China.

Worst part is that Ayer said that Sucide Squad had a budget bigger than 250 million.
That movie is more expensive than BvS.

>they had the genius idea to open it against Transformers 5

Even worse.
Wonder Woman is sandwiched between Transformers 5, which comes out a week later, and Pirates of the Caribbean 5, which comes out a week earlier.

I wonder how it feels to know that you suck so bad that you're destroying a company, and there's no way you can get fired.

WB moved Wonder Woman. Its now going against Captain Underpants and Bad Boys 3. I still don't think its going to do well.

>Bad Boys 3.
That's not helping either

JUST

...

Snyder doesn't think he is destroying anything

He just thinks no one gets his vision

God I hate this

>A 50 million dollar R rated comedy beat both universes for profitability

The universe is funny.

>Pirates of the Caribbean 5
>Transformers 5

So many properties that I love controlled by a guy that I just don't like. Ain't fair bros.

I thought he was only attached up through JL: Part One?

>transformers is one of the most universally reviled franchises of the modern era
>it still rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars
I do not understand.

people like watching a train wreck especially if the train transforms into a giant robot

Kids like them, Chinks like them. What's not to understand?

No he's doing part 2

And a producer for all the other DCEU movies

He's really their notFeige at this point

Only the internet hates them, general audiences loves them

You should learn that internet reactions aren't representative of the general public

same here batman

Most of that money comes from China and Malaysia.

I thought he was off of Part 2? Shit.

Even without China Transformers would still make 800+ millions

So not sure why China gets so much blame for the success of this franchise

Having worked at Warner Brothers, I gotta say that the amount of incompetence present on the Burbank lot is staggering, from top to bottom.

Guess that's what happens when you let accountants run a movie studio. Fucking accountants aren't even human fucking beings, more like some sub-human meat-robot automaton that worships numbers.

But yeah, don't discount the power of utter stupidity.

Most have said that his future depends on JL1 but I don't know if there is anybody that would want to clean up his mess.

>Fucking accountants aren't even human fucking beings, more like some sub-human meat-robot automaton that worships numbers.
user, it's okay, you can say jews

Let us hope. I just want them to at least try to salvage this.

I am so upset as a DC fan that it's not even funny. At least Rebirth is looking good.

They'll have to keep going, even if it does shit. Wonder Woman and Justice League are too far into production to just call it quits, they can't stop just now. My best guess is that they'll do SS, WW, JL1, Flash, Aquaman, JL2 and then they'll shove another Batman trilogy down our throats because Batman is Batman, with the other more successful movies will get there own sequels sprinkled in around Batman.

Honestly, the whole DCEU dissolving into a Batman cinematic universe doesn't seem that unlikely to me. TDK and TDKR made a billion each, Batman doesn't need the rest of the DC characters to be successful. If anything, the WB execs probably think that's the reason BvS underperformed.

It did because there was a vaccuum of similar things, so it sold extremely well, because it was actually good.

The thing that tickles me, is that if you look at profitability, without being a massive hit, Ant-Man still profited more than BvS. That one is the one that makes me smile.

I'm hoping for a rebooted cinematic universe at some point that actually does the DCU right.

I want to live in the universe where none of these movies except for solo Batfleck exists.

Speaking as an accountant, I'd like to say fuck you but I know you're going to get screwed on your mortgage because of that attitude problem you have, so instead I'll say this: I'm sorry you're such a weak-minded simpleton, user.

As someone who got all of his comic knowledge from 90s cartoon shows, I only have one question: what the hell is the suicide squad and why would I go see their movie after BvS was so horrible?

Suicide Squad looks alright though

rouges gallery gets turned into a government sanctioned plausible deniability black ops squad

So it's like the Dirty Dozen without a war to make any kind of rational sense out of the program?

Those are some mighty big boots to fill.

>why would I go see their movie after BvS was so horrible

Imagine being an advertising executive handed this shit to deal with. Admen get a lot of shit but honestly, if they can keep something like this from becoming all-out failure, they're doing their job.

>So it's like the Dirty Dozen without a war to make any kind of rational sense out of the program?
They protect American interests.

Should've fired Snyder immediately after BvS, contract be damned.

Except WB stock would tank for doing such a move. Their collective balls are in a vice on this one. Though I would kill to hear boardroom rage

Look up the stockholders meeting from a few weeks ago. They basically made the films division a footnote on the entire meeting

I bet they were on the brink of doing that, but they couldn't. BvS would have done even worse if they announced that they fired the movie's director immediately after it had released. Even worse, IIRC JL began filming 2 weeks after BvS released, there's no way they could fire him and find a willing replacement in time. They'd have to cancel everything they'd been preparing for and they'd lose a shit ton more money.

I bet everyone at Warners is silently hoping Snyder learns from the backlash and tones back a bit for Justice League
because GOD they cant fire him but no one wants him there either

If Snyder didn't learn after the backlash of Watchmen, OR the backlash of Sucker Punch, OR the backlash of MoS, he's not learning this time around

It seems more like they're putting people in place to leash him in if anything, with Johns and Berg appointed head of DC's film division and Affleck being made executive producer on Justice League while directing his own movie. He hasn't been fired yet because they can't risk it, but they're not gonna let him fuck it up in the meantime.

>I bet everyone at Warners is silently hoping Snyder learns from the backlash
That's the fucking problem though: He never fucking learns. said it perfectly and out of all of his movies the one that wasn't polarizing was Dawn of the Dead and 300 (Kind of.).