DC cinematic universe

You’re going to have to hold your breath for a whole two extra months before Jason Momoa’s Aquaman makes his solo debut.

With all eyes on the next entry in the DC Cinematic Universe, it’s hard to say what is under more pressure: Wonder Woman, the World War II-era superhero and savior of the modern world, or Wonder Woman, the first female-directed movie in the modern blockbuster era and a stab at social relevance for the beleaguered executives at Warner Bros. The first Wonder Woman trailer that debuted at Comic-Con hit all the right notes for an exciting and female-driven superhero movie; would additional trailers walk back that promise or deliver more of the same?

Like any job, writing about the latest news in the world of entertainment can wear on you after long enough, so you gotta appreciate the little pearls of amusement where you can get them. Personally, watching the latest solo Batman project fall apart in slow motion has been a perverse thrill over the past couple of months: star Ben Affleck was gonna direct (maybe) the film titled The Batman, then he was definitely gonna direct it, then he backpedaled a little bit, then he requested that people stop asking him about it, then he face-planted onto the sidewalk with the costly flop Live By Night, and then look at that, he wasn’t taking the director’s chair after all. The indignities kept coming, as Warner Bros. ordered sweeping rewrites to this floundering project before landing Planet of the Apes remake maestro Matt Reeves to fill the directorial vacuum.

Since announcing that Ben Affleck would no longer be directing the upcoming standalone The Batman film, Warner Bros. has been in a full-blown crisis mode, working overtime to find a talented new director and prove all those “Is the DC Cinematic Universe doomed?” articles wrong. Back in January, Forbes reported that the Warner Bros. shortlist featured several interesting names, including George Miller, Denis Villeneuve, and Matt Reeves. And now, less than two weeks after The Batman lost its director, it appears that Warner Bros. has settled on its replacement.

These are dark days for the Dark Knight.

If the D.C. Cinematic Universe has been chugging towards its Justice League centerpiece like a well-oiled machine, then The Flash solo movie is the one janky mechanism that keeps coming out of joint and necessitating repairs. Warner Bros. executives have been unable to pin down a creative team for the fastest man on the planet’s moment in the spotlight, having already lost original director Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) as well as replacement director Rick Famuyiwa (Dope) just this past Halloween. As the search continues for a director who won’t end up with ‘creative differences’ like the others — that’s movie slang for “refused to bend to the will of the studio” — Warner Bros. is ensuring that no trace of Famuyiwa will be left in the finished product.

The awesome trailers and posters for Wonder Woman play up the movie’s heroes: Gal Gadot as Princess Diana, who leaves behind her home of Themyscira to join the world of men; Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, a World War I pilot who becomes her love interest, and Connie Nielsen’s Queen Hippolyta, Diana’s mother. The marketing does a great job of selling the movie’s action, tone, and mood — but it’s barely addressed who, if anyone is the movie’s primary villain.

Ben Affleck is frustrated. And who could blame him? Anyone who dons Batman’s iconic cape and mask is immediately the center of superhero fans’ attention, both positive and negative. But Affleck doesn’t just want to live in a Batman bubble and only be asked about Batman. (Valid, but what did you expect dude?)

Over the weekend, USA Today dropped their 2017 movie preview and a handful of new photos of some of the year’s most anticipated movies. One of those was, of course, DC’s Justice League. We’ve seen some brief behind-the-scenes looks and some new looks at Wonder Woman, Batman, and The Flash, but now the whole gang has arrived.

How much does Jason Momoa, hulking star of the upcoming Aquaman and eventual Justice League member, love his family? So much that he cut together an 8-minute video about his devotion and commitment to his beautiful children, and then ensured that millions of people would have to watch it by nestling some exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the set of Justice League along with the golden-hued shots of his children playing in what appears to be the wheat field from Gladiator. The things we do for our kid