With a 2023 Slate Hobbled by Controversial Stars, Warner Bros. and DC Stick to 2022 Titles in Muted Comic-Con Appearance
For most of the 2010s, Warner Bros. cast a massive shadow at San Diego Comic-Con. Between its substantial presence on the showroom floor and a pull-out-all-the-stops presentation in Hall H that could stretch well beyond two hours, the studio was second to none â not even its main rival, Marvel Studios â in its ability to leverage the largest fan convention in North America to its advantage.
This year, the studio took a decidedly different approach. It skipped the show floor completely, including a presence for DC Comics. And while it did use its hour-long panel in Hall H to showcase two of its 2022 releases â âBlack Adamâ and âShazam! Fury of the Godsâ â the studioâs biggest DC movies for 2023, âAquaman and the Lost Kingdomâ and âThe Flash,â were completely MIA. There was no mention of other DC titles like âBatgirlâ (expected to debut this year) and âBlue Beetleâ (the first Latino superhero film), nor updates on the future of Gal Gadotâs âWonder Womanâ and Robert Pattinsonâs âThe Batman.â (Meanwhile, persistent internet rumors of an appearance by âMan of Steelâ star Henry Cavill proved to be as unfounded as they seemed.)
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Instead, âShazam! 2â star Zachary Levi bantered with costars Lucy Liu, Asher Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer and director David F. Sandberg, while Helen Mirren and Rachel Zegler appeared in a scripted video message in which Mirren celebrated her female costars by saying, âYay, pussy power!â
It was up to Dwayne Johnson, in costume as Black Adam, to bring the drama, emerging on a raised platform surrounded in smoke and sending a bolt of lightning into the audience â activating blue lights in lanyards handed out to the Hall H audience.
The crowd lapped it up, but there was a palpable sense that they were eager for more: An audience member asked Levi if Shazam would fight Superman (Levi played dumb and then winked at the audience), and Johnson was asked how Black Adam would fare against the man of steel. (Johnsonâs eyebrow-raising reply: âIt probably all depends on whoâs playing Superman.â)
This is also the first Comic-Con for Warner Bros. under its new ownership at Warner Bros. Discovery, and CEO David Zaslav has made clear heâs taking a harder look at spending across the company â including for events like Comic-Con, where studios have to shell out for talent, housing, transportation and staffing. Studio insiders say âAquaman 2â and âThe Flashâ are too far away on the schedule to warrant a big splash at Comic-Con, or to have enough materials to support one.
In previous years, though, Warner Bros. has used Hall H as a launching pad for films well beyond the calendar year. The 2014 panel for the studio included the first-ever look at 2015âs âMad Max: Fury Road.â Zack Snyder first announced 2016âs âBatman v Supermanâ at Comic-Con in 2013; the panel for the film was held in 2015.
Both âAquaman 2â and âThe Flashâ completed shooting months ago, which could have given their respective directors, James Wan and Andy Muschietti, time to put together at least some footage to whip up the buzz commensurate with the charactersâ stature among the Comic-Con faithful.
âAquaman 2,â however, costars Amber Heard, who just spent months at the center of one of the ugliest public court battles in Hollywood history against her ex-husband Johnny Depp â during which Heardâs status in the film was a major point of contention. A jury found in June that Heard and Depp each defamed each other, but Depp was awarded millions more in damages against Heard, who was also relentlessly ridiculed and excoriated by Deppâs fans on social media. (She filed a notice of appeal on July 21.)
And âThe Flashâ star Ezra Miller is facing multiple allegations of abusive behavior, including choking a woman in Iceland and harassing another woman in her home in Berlin, as well as two arrests in Hawaii this year â once in March, for disorderly conduct and harassment, and another a month later, for second-degree assault. (Miller has never commented on the allegations of misconduct against them; a source close to the situation told Variety in June that the actor is privately focusing on their health and healing, hoping to address the allegations at some point in the future.)
The circumstances of Heard and Millerâs situations are quite different. However, in both cases, Warner Bros. is facing down an impossible dilemma without much precedent, even in the #MeToo era: How to promote their escapist superhero franchises when their stars are embroiled in toxic scandals that overwhelm all other conversation about them.
In the case of âAquaman 2,â Walter Hamada, who runs the studioâs DC unit, testified in a video deposition in the Heard-Depp trial that the studio did consider recasting Heard in the role of Mera opposite star Jason Momoa because the actors âdidnât have a lot of chemistry together.â
âEditorially they were able to make that relationship work in the first movie, but there was a concern that it took a lot of effort to get there,â Hamada said. Itâs not exactly a rousing endorsement for a movie.
Mera, however, isnât the central character for âAquaman,â and promotion for the film could downplay Heardâs presence. That isnât possible for âThe Flash,â which is built around Millerâs performances as multiple versions of their speedster character, Barry Allen. Though the studio could replace Miller for any future âFlashâ movies, calls to reshoot Muschiettiâs film with a new actor are financially untenable.
The Flash was referenced during the panel, in the âShazam! 2â trailer, just not by name; though the character appeared on screen, Millerâs face did not. (By contrast Aquaman and Batman get a full name-check in the trailer, with Momoa and Ben Affleckâs faces both appearing on screen.)
At some point, Warner Bros. will need to engage the DC fan base about these films and the actors within them. But rather than try to navigate these choppy waters in front of some 6,000-plus superfans at Comic-Con, Warner Bros. elected to avoid them altogether â for now.
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