Somehow DC fans still haven’t tired of the back-and-forth between Zachary Levi and Dwayne Johnson. What started as a minor slight from Johnson to Levi has been escalating over the last few weeks, with Levi finally speaking on the matter in a recent interview. The stunt coordinator for the now-cancelled Batgirl has shared some juicy tidbits about how cool the movie’s stunts would have been, and the news just serves to bring back the sting of losing the film in the first place. Meanwhile, fans are dissecting the reason DC movies have failed to live up to Marvel’s precedent, and DC execs would do well to take a moment to peruse the conversation.
Zachary Levi is spilling a lot of tea for someone who wants to keep their job
The way Zachary Levi has been openly dissing his co-star and blaming WB studios for the disappointment that is Shazam! Fury of the Gods has more than a few fans certain the actor won’t be returning for any more projects. Levi has been openly deriding WB for failing fans with the headless Superman cameo, and has expanded his list to include the shoehorned cameo appearances in the film’s mid-credits sequence. Levi has made no secret of his disappointment in the scene, as well as stating that those closely tied to the project wanted it to go another direction entirely. The actor’s pellucidity has long included his now-infamous beef with co-star Dwayne Johnson, with the two endlessly throwing shade at one another. The feud started with the Rock refusing to cameo in Fury of the Gods, but escalated when it was revealed that he refused Levi a cameo in his own project, Black Adam. For his part, Levi doesn’t seem all that concerned with the dispute, saying he has plenty of other things going on in his life.
Fans are trying to figure out where the DCEU went wrong, and there are a lot of possibilities
DC fans on Reddit put their minds together to try and pinpoint the problems with the Snyderverse and boy, is that one deep rabbit hole. Fans were quick to point out the overstuffed nature of the films and DC’s apparent rush to get past the development stages in order to focus on team-up movies. Some wished DC would have more closely mirrored the standalone build up, saying that it wasn’t Marvel who perfected the story telling method, but comics themselves, a fact that many comic book movies seem to try to forget. Others supported the franchise’s disinclination to follow in Marvel’s footsteps and instead pointed to Zack Snyder’s tendency to make standalone movies — and that one offs don’t make for good sequels. Most of all, fans assumed it was studio execs abusing their power and undermining the creative process, and many were hopeful that the recent collapse of the DC empire will teach those at the top to stop undermining the talent.
Though ‘Batgirl’ may never see the light of day, we can’t deny it sounds awesome
Stunt coordinator Scott Rodgers, of John Wick 4 fame revealed in an interview earlier this week that the scrapped Batgirl project was packed with amazing stunts. The film followed a set of superheroes and super villains with an unusual trait for the genre — a lack of superpowers — which made choreographing a much more interesting feat. Rodgers detailed some impressive stunts he designed for Brendan Fraser’s character, Firefly, a super villain with a predilection for lighting things on fire, and you guessed it, flying. The sequence involved 40 foot flame throwers, motorcycles and took place on the back of a moving fire truck. It’s hard to imagine that a movie with this bananas of a fight scene could ever be shelved but, with the studio using the defunct project as a tax write off, its likely we’ll never get to see the explosive moment in more detail than these leaked shots of the action. Despite it all, fans have called for Batgirl actress Leslie Grace to reprise her role, and Fraser has continued to voice his interest in joining the DC universe despite the franchises repeated snub of the actor.