Can Superman Save Warner?

0:05Can you introduce yourself, please? Sure. I'm Ben Fritz. I cover the entertainment industry for The Journal. And fans of your podcast may remember I was the host of a journal podcast miniseries a couple of years ago called With Great Power, all about superhero movies. Ben is our in-house superhero expert. And I wanted to talk to him about one of the first superheroes. Superman. He's the template on which every other superhero has been based. And he's such a symbol of, like, truth and goodness and old-fashioned values and doing the right thing, you know, that he's always this icon, I think, for anybody who cares about superheroes in comic books.

0:48You probably know the story. Superman is from another planet. As a baby, his spaceship crash-landed in the little town of Smallville, Kansas. He embodies everything about a traditional superhero. He's got the square jaw, perfect hair, and big red cape. And he's faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. And today, the latest version of The Man of Steel flies back into theaters. My father once told me, it's not about what you can do, Clark. It's about what you choose to do. That's why I choose to protect this world. It's a reboot, which, you know, means they're starting over from scratch with a whole new cast and a whole new mythos.

1:35And this Superman movie is sort of really trying to balance these very comic book-y elements, these, you know, slightly silly, not quite real elements, which is sort of what goes along with Superman, with like very real, grounded moral quandaries in the real world. Superman is looking at an opening weekend of at least$125 million, based on early surveys. DC Studios wants to see those numbers go up, up, and away. Because in the real world, Superman doesn't need to save Metropolis. He needs to save a struggling DC brand.

2:12How bad are things for DC and Warner Bros. Discovery's movie aspirations right now? They're basically starting from virtually zero. I mean, their movie strategy has basically grinded to a halt over the past few years. They've had hits, they've had flops, and they're basically, DC is saying, look, that's like our sordid, unpleasant history. We're putting it behind us, and we are starting over again. This is going to be the time that we get DC right, and Superman is the beginning of it, because for DC to work, Superman's got to work.

2:48Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, July 11th.

3:01Coming up on the show, it's a bird. It's a plane. It's Superman. Can he save Warner Brothers' struggling business?

3:22What does Superman mean to you, Ben? I really remember Superman 2. He gets in a big fight with, like, these three villains from Krypton. Admiral? Would you care to step outside? Superman! I really remember that making, like, a big impression on me because I was thinking, like, how can one super-powered guy beat three super-powered people? The math wasn't mathing. Yeah, yeah, but he did it. That's why he's Superman. I love that. It's funny because I actually, my interaction with Superman was primarily through Smallville because the TV show from the early 2000s, primarily because I had a huge crush on Tom Welling who played the character.

3:59Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. It's a lot less. Superman is one of the OG superheroes. He first appeared in comic books in the 1930s, and his first on-screen appearance was a black and white film serial in the 40s. This looks like a job for Superman. And then the big moment was 1978 with the Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve. And that was the first big live-action superhero movie. And just like Superman is a template for superheroes, that 1978 movie is the template for superhero movies. Easy, miss. I've got you. You've got me? Who's got you? Christopher Reeve starred in three more Superman films in the 80s.

4:39Those were the ones Ben remembered seeing as a kid. Then in 2006, there was Superman Returns, which wasn't very successful. DC tried again in 2013 with Man of Steel. You're a monster, Zod.

4:55And I'm going to stop you. That was Henry Cavill played Superman. He then played Superman again in Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. And then he was in Justice League, which was, of course, a big bomb. And that put an end to those films and to that character. I mean, that's a lot of adaptations. It's a lot of adaptations, absolutely. Despite all these adaptations, Superman's success has been a mixed bag. A lot of those movies and TV shows didn't do well. What has been Superman's kryptonite, so to speak, for Hollywood success here? There are two things that are really hard about Superman. One is, you know, he has like godlike powers.

5:38So how do you give him a really interesting challenge? You know, his archvillain is Lex Luthor, who's incredibly smart, but not strong. But it's a guy. It's just like a guy. It's just a guy. Right. So how do you have an action movie in which the protagonist is the most powerful being on Earth? Right. And the villain is a regular guy. It's hard to do. And that's one thing they've always struggled with is how do you give Superman a challenge? And the other thing is how do you sort of balance these very simple, old-fashioned values that are the core of what Superman is? and make him feel relevant and interesting in the modern broken world.

6:17That's interesting. I mean, to your first point about him being like having God powers, I think that's also part of the reason why so many of us who do like watching superhero movies, Superman is sort of like, he's kind of unrelatable. It's like he's just too powerful. He's too different. So that is sort of a really interesting kind of conundrum. Right. He's so much harder than, say, Spider-Man, who's just like a regular teenager who happens to have something extraordinary happen to him, but still dealing with bullies and the girl who he pines after. Like, we can all relate to what it's like to be a teenager like Peter Parker in Spider-Man.

6:48Yeah. And Batman is this regular person who experiences trauma and does extraordinary things in the world. Right. But is still ultimately a tortured, regular human being. And a lot of people can relate to that too. Yeah. It's hard to relate to an alien who was dropped here by parents from another world. Yes, exactly right, right. Nobody has a backstory that's remotely similar to Superman's. DC's issues with superhero movies aren't just with Superman. The company has had a bunch of disappointing releases, like Justice League. Kal-El, no! And the Wonder Woman sequel. Barbara, what did you do? And The Flash.

7:25You should seek the services of a mental health professional. The Justice League is not very good at that part yet. Trust me. Meanwhile, DC's arch rival, Marvel Studios, has built a cinematic universe that has had wild successes based on its slate of superheroes. And it's made its parent company, Disney, billions of dollars. DC, they've had a few hits here and there, but they've always struggled to build something bigger, to have a consistency of success the way Marvel has. And they've never been able to do it. And, you know, that's really been damaging because Marvel has brought a lot of profits and a lot of value to Disney.

8:02And DC hasn't done it for Warner. So all those flops have been a huge sore spot for DC's parent company. DC is 100 % owned by Warner Brothers. You know, it's their absolute most valuable intellectual property. And its success or failure plays an outsized, massive role in the success or failure of Warner Discovery. On top of its troubles with DC, Warner Brothers Discovery is now in the middle of a major overhaul. It was three years ago that Warner Media merged with Discovery Communications. And, you know, that brought together the famous movie studio and HBO Max, a streaming service, and these Discovery cable networks.

8:41It hasn't gone very well. They put all the Discovery content together with all the HBO Max content into one big streaming service, but it hasn't been able to compete with Netflix. Earlier this year, Warner Brothers Discovery announced it was going to split up its business. One company would focus on cable TV networks, and the other would focus on movies and streaming. In an interview, CEO David Zaslav said, quote, We now have healthier, sturdier businesses that can be separated and grow and soar. The kind of growth company, the one that they hope has a future, is going to be called Studios and Streaming.

9:17And that's the Warner Brothers movie studio and the HBO Max streaming service. And, you know, if they do their job well, it will be a competitive media player in the world of streaming and films. But look, it's a very small company compared to giants like Disney and Netflix. And because of that, that's one more reason why they really need DC to work. But if he's such a tricky character to adapt and Warner Brothers needs this big win, why is this a job for Superman? Well, you know, I've spoken to some people who've worked at DC over the years, and they've always said that as far as public perception of the DC brand, as goes Superman, so goes the brand.

9:56Like, that's how people see DC, you know? And if people feel good about Superman, then they feel good about DC. And if they feel bad about Superman, then they're kind of soured at DC. So, you know, of course, Warner Brothers wants this movie to be a huge box office hit, but what they really need is for people to be excited about DC again. The man that DC hopes will get people excited about Superman, he's next.

10:36So a lot riding on sort of the revival of Superman in this moment. Who is at the helm of this at DC? Can you talk about him? So this movie is written and directed by James Gunn. He has like a really weird history. He started off doing like low-budget horror movies and comedies and a couple of Scooby-Doo movies in the 2000s. Love that. Yes, very random fact. And he's this really brash, outspoken, punk rock kind of a guy. James Gunn is best known as the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, one of Marvel's most popular film franchises. R.M.P. Well, that's just as fascinating as the first 89 times you told me that.

11:19What is wrong with Givenchy?

11:24So, James Gunn directed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. The first one of those movies is probably one of them up there for me in terms of my favorite Marvel movies. But it's a Marvel movie. Yeah. And Marvel is DC's arch nemesis. Yes. So, how or why did Gunn switch sides? It's this really crazy story where when they were preparing to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, James Gunn got briefly fired from that movie because some old tweets of his that were very offensive were resurfaced. Some of those tweets were jokes about sexual assault and led to backlash online. As a result, Disney fired Gunn from directing the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

12:04Gunn apologized for those tweets. And all the Guardians cast rallied to his side and said, look, he's a good guy. He regrets what he did. This shouldn't be the end of his career. Eight months later, Disney rehired Gunn, and he finished directing the movie. But in the eight months when Gunn was on ice, Warner Brothers swooped in. The head of Warner Brothers movie division ran into Peter Safran, who was James Gunn's manager and producing partner, in the gym on the Warner Brothers lot. And he said to him, hey, I think James Gunn has been really mistreated by Disney. I wanted to come over and work for DC.

12:37Would he be willing to make Superman for us? And Safran and Gunn discussed it. And Gunn was like, I don't know if I'm ready to tackle Superman, at least right now. You know, that's the guy on top of the mountain. But he agreed to do the Suicide Squad.

12:53That movie, about a group of supervillains, was successful enough that the relationship grew. And Gunn did take on Superman, starting in 2022. It was a movie that in total cost$225 million to make. Now, Gunn and Peter Safran are in charge of DC Studios. They're planning to build a new DC cinematic universe, and it's the first time the company has had a single central vision for its superheroes. There's always been separate fiefdoms, like Christopher Nolan controlled Batman. Nobody else was allowed to touch Batman characters in any other media for as long as the Dark Knight trilogy was happening, for example.

13:32There was the TV shows, and they had nothing to do with the DC movies. But Warner Brothers was never able to say, we need to have one DC strategy across all media. There was just too many competing fiefdoms, too many competing power centers. The studio under Gunn and Safran already has a few projects in the works, like Supergirl, a movie about Superman's cousin. There are also others that are a little genre-bending, like a body horror movie about Clayface, the shape-shifting Batman villain, and an HBO series about the Green Lantern Corps in the style of a detective show. Here's Gunn in a video posted to DC's YouTube page.

14:10Storytelling is always king. That's all that matters to us. And I want to be true to those stories. I want to be true to you guys and really give you something different than you've ever seen before. But first, there's Superman, right? Which, as we've been talking about, notoriously difficult character to make really compelling, relatable movies about. So you mentioned Gunn's sort of creative leadership. How is he approaching that problem of Superman's character? Gunn's approach in this movie is trying to have Superman be this guy with really aspirational values who's conflicted in dealing with the world, right?

14:48Who's like, how can you have these very strong old-fashioned values that a character like Superman has and deal with all the troubles of the modern world? That's the conflict at the heart of the movie. So what's at risk here for DC, which has already had so many reboots, as we've said, over the past years, and for Warner Brothers? I mean, the stakes for DC are pretty existential because they have the structure in place. They've always said they wanted. They have a filmmaker with a really strong track record. They have their most iconic character. And if they can't make that work, then you'd sort of say, what more can they do?

15:26I mean, it doesn't seem like they could have all the pieces aligned any better than they do now. It'll be a really serious blow to the public perception of the DC brand and the value of the DC brand. And for Warner Brothers, it's not quite existential, but it's very important. You know, they are going to be, especially after the split, they're going to be a minnow in a sea of sharks in the media business. And a successful DC will just be a huge, huge boost to the company. And a failed DC is going to leave them in very, very rough shape. It does feel a little bit like a gamble, though, right? I mean, DC has sort of been playing catch-up to Marvel for the past decade or so, if not more.

16:06What makes this different? Like, is there concern that it doesn't pan out? Oh, yeah. It's absolutely a gamble. I mean, there's a lot at stake just in the execution, you know? Are people going to like Superman and everything to come? And there's broader concerns about superhero fatigue. You know, Marvel has been on a real downward spiral the last few years. Everybody agrees, including at Disney, that they pumped out too many TV shows on Disney +, and people got a little sick of it. So there's broadly not as much excitement about superheroes as there was a few years ago. What does success look like for Superman?

16:42Are there targets that the film needs to hit to be considered a success, internally especially? Yeah, people internally at Warner Brothers are saying this movie's got to gross at least$500 million. I mean, I think that's the absolute minimum that they would consider a financial success. And just as importantly, they want people to feel good coming out of it and to like it. I mean, they'll really be looking for, like, you know, what are the ratings they're getting from fans? What's the online buzz? You know, that's obviously a little bit harder to quantify, but that's really important to them. It's almost like a test case.

17:14Yes, absolutely. I mean, I talked to fans who were outside the Superman premiere, and they were telling me, like, I'm going to judge DC based on what James Gunn can do as Superman. Wow. Because they've given him the keys to the kingdom. And you've seen the Superman film sort of ahead of opening weekend. Are you going to see it with your kids once it's out? Yes. Well, my son, who's 13, is at camp currently. But when he comes back, I'm going to try to convince him to go with me, definitely. One of my goals in life is to get him as excited about superheroes as I am. Wait, he's not? A 13-year-old boy is not excited about superheroes?

17:46Yeah, because, you know, it's a weird thing. When your dad has, like, a collection of 100-plus graphic novels in his room and hosted a podcast about superheroes, it doesn't feel cool to like superheroes, you know? Well, maybe this is the movie. Maybe this is the movie that gets them. Maybe this will be the, yeah. Hope springs eternal.

18:07That's all for today, Friday, July 11th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Joe Flint. The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Carlos Garcia,

18:39Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley, remixed in this episode by Nathan Singapak. Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Griffin Tanner, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you on Monday.

19:08What have been—sorry, I can hear your cat. Sorry.

19:14Let me see if I can close this door. Okay, thank you.