Superman month concludes this week, but we couldn’t leave without talking about the last iteration of The Man of Steel. In this episode we look at the entirety of the DCEU – from a franchise of franchises overseen by Zack Snyder to a disjointed dying gasp of poorly performing films and ones pulled before they could see the light of day – we go over the ins and outs of the series. We talk about the merits of the films and what we feel lead to its downfall. Along the way we also discuss our favorite and least favorite movies of them all.
In lieu of a five-minute controversy this week, the cast discusses the trailer for The Fantastic Four.
This week Ryan, James, and Daviorr join the cast.
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Shazam was a surprise release from DC in 2019. The movie saw an effort to move away from the dark and gritty storytelling that had characterized DC movies since the late 80’s and move it back towards a more amusing bent. The movie was not as expensive as the more recent DC films so even it’s somewhat modest performance at the box office earmarked it as a success. In this movie we discuss its sequel, Shazam: Fury of the Gods. In this episode we talk about the characters and performances in the movie. We also discuss the plot and the placement of cameos in the film. We also debate whether the announcement of Gunn’s DCU tanked the ticket sales for the film and whether we think this film will be the last with the Shazam family.
Everything gets a bit dark this week as The 42cast looks into the latest film to come from the DC Universe, Black Adam. We discuss this as Dwayne Johnson’s passion peace that he’s been trying to get made since 2014. We talk about the plot and themes and discuss whether they make any sense in the context of what we’ve seen from DC before. We also get into the casting choices and what we think about the portrayal of various characters that have never been seen in live action before. We also opine on the inclusion of elements like Amanda Waller and Superman and how those both effect the narrative. We also discuss the Shazam connection and we talk about what a Black Adam franchise could have looked like.
In 2015, DC released a list of a large number of DC movies extending into 2020. Of the movies announced for 2018 or later, Shazam was the only one that was neither rescheduled nor canceled. In this episode, we take a look at the Shazam film. We discuss the Captain Marvel name controversy. We talk about the portrayal of the same character with a young actor and an adult actor. We also talk about the villainy of Mark Strong and whether the Seven Deadly Sins really measure up. We also discuss how the plot of the film worked for us and what we want to see out of a second movie.