The Four Color Media Monitor

In this TV Line interview, the cable channel announced plans to produce a GL series where Alan Scott remains in the same sorry situation he's been in for a decade already, ever since the overrated James Robinson took the task of corrupting DC's products ever further:

Co-written and exec-produced by the prolific Greg Berlanti and Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim, Green Lantern (working title) will reinvent the classic DC property through a story spanning decades and galaxies, beginning on Earth in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott (played by Jeremy Irvine), and 1984, with cocky alpha male Guy Gardner (American Horror Story‘s Finn Wittrock) and half-alien Bree Jarta. They’ll be joined by other Lanterns “from comic book favorites to never-before-seen heroes.”

When the DC superhero project was announced back in October 2019, Berlanti teased that Green Lantern “promises to be our biggest DC show ever made.”

LEGO Batman Movie scribe Seth Grahame-Smith, who will serve as co-writer/EP alongside Berlanti and Guggenheim, is the showrunner, while additional EPs include Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter, David Madden and David Katzenberg.

Oh, now isn't this telling when Johns - a scribe who, much like Brian Bendis, ruined mainstream superheroes with his sleazy storytelling - is credited as one of the producers of a TV show retaining a corrupted vision of a character who was never created as gay back in the Golden Age. It basically confirms Johns never respected the original creators' visions (Bill Finger and Mart Nodell) in the first place. And what if Guy Gardner's characterization is portrayed negatively? Of course, as I'd argued before, Guy had his potential destroyed years before by the disgraced Gerard Jones, and if this is how the new TV show's being developed, it won't improve anything for a character who deserved better in portrayal. Berlanti's already proven an exploitive ideologue well before this impending embarrassment, and it won't be a shock if this turns out to be more of the same. If there's any DC-based product that could be boycotted this year, it's surely this one, which is yet another example of the terrible abuse of the GL franchise that was set on a path to self-destruction in late 1988.

On the other hand, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that the gigantically budgeted Flash movie starring disgraced "actor" Ezra Miller may be canned, as his criminal scandals continue to put a cloud over proceedings. Again, however, this trade journal, much like Variety continues to insult people's intellects by describing Miller through "pronouns", which is getting repellent at this point:

The fate of Warner Bros.’ The Flash hangs in the balance as actor Ezra Miller continues to make headlines for their controversial behavior and various arrests. An outright shelving of the film is not off the table, though it would be a last resort.

Warners — and its new parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery — had hoped to avoid the line of fire, because its big-budget DC superhero tentpole isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until June 23, 2023. But the pressure is mounting by the day.

[...] A source with knowledge of the situation says the studio appears to be preparing for three possible scenarios.

First, Warners has received indications that the 29-year-old Miller, whose mother has accompanied the actor in recent days, will seek professional help after returning home to their farm in Vermont after being away. If that happens, Miller, who goes by they/them pronouns, could give an interview at some point explaining their erratic behavior over the past few years. The actor could then do limited press for The Flash, and the movie would open in cinemas as planned.

The second scenario: Even if Miller doesn’t reach out for help, Warners could still release the film. But don’t expect Miller to play a prominent role in terms of marketing and publicity. Nor would Miller be the Flash going forward, as the role would be recast in future projects.

The third: The situation with Miller deteriorates further. This would see Warners killing the movie outright, as it could not be reshot with a different actor. Miller plays multiple characters and is in almost every scene. Scrapping a $200 million film would be an unprecedented move.

But, it'd be inevitable, and as I've mentioned before, failure by Hollywood to properly enforce contract morality clauses has led to this sorry situation. That aside, their insistence on sticking with pronoun descriptions, again, is enough to drive the sane up the wall. I wouldn't consider an attempt explain his awful behavior in Hawaii, for example, through press screenings, a way to reverse what's become a bad situation by now. If it didn't work for Alec Baldwin when he tried filming a disastrous video trying to explain the tragedy he caused on the set of the now cancelled movie Rust, it's unlikely to work for Miller either, considering how disturbing the accusations against him are. WB's best option would only be to put an end to the Flash movie's release altogether.

And then, what's this the UK edition of GQ is telling in an interview with Aquaman movie star Jason Momoa, where he talks about allegories for "climate change", as if that were literally the worst problem the world suffers from right now:

...his own film franchise has taken on a new life as a thinly-veiled metaphor for the destruction of the planet. Aquaman lays the blame for polluting the world on the behaviour of humankind, lamenting as the skies burn and the oceans boil. “These superhero movies dominate our market, which I have my own thoughts on because I love cinema, but we try to put out a positive message and go on an adventure,” he says. “Aquaman is the most made-fun-of superhero in the world. But it’s amazing to be able to bring awareness of what is happening to our planet. It’s not some story that’s been told over and over, [it’s a] movie about what’s happening right now but in a fantasy world.”

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which will be released next year, leans further into climate change allegory. Surprisingly, then, it’s also “a lot funnier” than its predecessor, Momoa says. “I have a great time with… there’s a lot of…. It’s a throwback to…” he says, buffering as his brain calculates what he’s actually allowed to reveal. “I don’t want to give too much away. But we really get to speed up what is going to happen to this earth, and it’s not because of aliens.”

The sequel features a scene in which Aquaman’s alter-ego Arthur Curry gives a grand speech to the UN warning them of the disaster looming on the horizon. Things came full circle for the actor earlier this year when he addressed the real United Nations himself. Momoa was at the UN’s Ocean Conference in June in Lisbon; his daughter Lola, 15, and son Nakoa-Wolf, 13, who he shares with his ex-wife Lisa Bonet, were both seated in the front row. At the end of the talk they were called on in the audience to answer the final question – “What do you think we can do right now to change the world?” – which they took on as though they’d been asked where the toilet was. “It made me feel extremely proud seeing them speak for themselves and take this heavy moment in,” Momoa says. “I’m not as young as I used to be. It’s scary having kids and knowing what is going to happen to our planet if we don’t change shit now.”

Well I've got a feeling the Aquaman sequel will wind up bad as the 4th Thor movie, if the comedy alluded to is any suggestion. I'll never understand how Arthur Curry is mocked as badly as he have been, yet nobody thinks the same of Sub-Mariner, who's also talked with fish in the sea.

But that aside, I find it most extremely galling Momoa's got such a naive view of the UN, which has one of the worst anti-Israel biases and staffers around. And, why does it sound like all the human race is to blame in the sequel movie for pollution, rather than just villainous hoodlums? It won't be a shock if this movie turns out to be one of the "woker" examples of DC-based adaptations, with a plot that's pretty cheap when one considers that Iran's nuclear warfare is far more dangerous than pollution per se.

Based on these examples, there really isn't anything to look forward to when it comes to DC-based movies and TV shows, any more than Marvel's at the moment. For all we know, what's happening now with WB's productions could demonstrate why their projects, just like Marvel's recent ones, could collapse sooner than we think.

Labels: Aquaman, dc comics, Flash, golden calf of LGBT, Green Lantern, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics