DC Comics Films and Clickbait
In this age of digital media many different online news sources have redefined the idea of “news.” While this topic has become very political recently, I have seen it rise in relation to the film industry. As one could tell by my first blog post, I am very interested in comic book movies (as well as comic books in general). Last year was a great year for superhero movies, some which I loved and some I did not, and I am in the group that enjoyed the movies that DC put out. While many hated those two films, Batman V. Superman and Suicide Squad, I thought they were way underrated. To bring this into my topic today, ever since Batman V. Superman was released, reporters and journalists have incessantly been asking Ben Affleck about how his progress on the solo Batman film is coming all while ignoring that he was also in two non-superhero films in 2016, The Accountant and Live By Night (which he also directed). As the press tours went on anyone watching could easily see how annoyed he was getting by this. It didn’t help that anytime he said anything about the progress of the solo Batman movie, a multitude of clickbait articles were published taking anything he said out of context and digging deeper than what he intended.
Once Affleck’s film Live By Night did not meet anyone’s expectations of success, he decided it would be for the best if they would find a new Batman director so he can focus on perfecting the role. This, of course, sparked constant new articles about him actually leaving the project altogether which seem to have no basis in reality. Soon after his departure as director there was legitimate rumors that Matt Reeves (director of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield, and more) would be jumping on as the new director. Between this rumor starting and his confirmation as director not even a week ago, there was even more clickbait articles about him dropping out of the project even though he was not yet even confirmed as the director. My point by discussing this is, since many do not like the direction DC is going with their movies and did not like their previous offerings, it has been a boon to news sites looking to get more hits on their articles as they know people want to see how they are in trouble and are in a chaotic mess. In my mind, these “news” sites are part of the reason Affleck dropped out of directing in the first place. As you can see in this interview he did with Jimmy Kimmel, he was visibly fed up with how the press has been ignoring his current directorial work to focus on something still very early in development. This form of news does not help anyone except for the websites that put it out. Angering high-profile actors and directors into fulfilling your own false narratives does not help the industry or the fans, like me, looking to get the best films possible out of these creators.
