Is it just me, or is there a detectable gulp of anxiety in the advertising campaign for Justice League, Warner Bros' superhero get-together? When you're uniting six comic-book legends for the first time on screen, the tag line "All In" has a rousing, Musketeerish ring to it.
But the expression has nothing to do with teamwork: it's from poker, and describes a last-ditch, bank-breaking gamble by a beleaguered player desperate to turn around their luck.
Unbelievably, that's a pretty fair description of where Warner Bros are at right now with this film: the fifth in the studio's DC Extended Universe franchise, after Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman.
This R4.3-billion blockbuster looks like anything but a surefire crowd-pleaser, despite four years of planning and the presence of three of the most popular characters in the history of super-heroics
When work began on Justice League in 2013, it must have seemed like as much of a slam-dunk-in-waiting as Marvel Studios' own first superhero ensemble piece, Avengers Assemble, had proven to be the previous summer.
But instead, this $300-million (R4.3-billion) blockbuster released on Friday looks like anything but a surefire crowd-pleaser, despite four years of planning and the presence of three of the most popular characters in the history of super-heroics.
Justice League ploughed into production less than three weeks after Batman v Superman's release. Warner Bros' rush to get their team-up film under way had shorn their production schedule of all breathing space, so all course-correction had to be made on the hoof.
DITCHING THE DICTATOR
Enter Jon Berg and Geoff Johns, two seasoned producers who were tasked by Warner Bros with co-ordinating their DC operation in May 2016, one month into the Justice League shoot. It was around this time that the planned two-part story involving the Superman villain Darkseid was set aside - even though the interplanetary dictator's impending arrival had been teased during Batman v Superman's bizarre desert-set dream sequence.
Instead, the script was redrafted as a standalone adventure that pitted the heroes against Steppenwolf, Darkseid's demonic uncle, who would serve as a horny-headed herald of bigger trouble yet to come.
Something else also became suddenly non-negotiable: jokes. One common criticism of Batman v Superman - that the film lacked a sense of humour - had so stung Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara that the studio commissioned urgent reshoots on Suicide Squad, to make the film lighter and more fun, according to the Hollywood Reporter's autopsy of that film's own chaotic production.
Justice League, too, had to urgently demonstrate a new-found sense of humour - which is why that June, Warner Bros flew a cohort of US film journalists to Leavesden Studios in Herfordshire to watch Ben Affleck's Batman and Ezra Miller's Flash laugh it up in one of the film's apparently numerous comedic interludes.
The cast were all on impeccable form: in the interviews that emerged from the session, the word "fun" just kept on bobbing up, like flotsam from a wreck. One month later, the newly zingered-up Suicide Squad was released to terrible reviews.
Filming on Justice League concluded in October 2016, and by the end of the year, director Zack Snyder had pulled together a rough cut. But there was evidently something missing, because in January, Warner Bros quietly brought in Joss Whedon to supervise another rewrite.
Yes, Joss Whedon: the same writer-director whose two Avengers films for Marvel had once been everything Justice League was going to set itself against. In other words, if you can't beat 'em, employ 'em - and when it came to making popular, well-reviewed films on schedule, Marvel seemed to be unbeatable.
Rumour had it that Snyder's initial cut was deemed "unwatchable" by the studio, and while that sounds a touch dramatic, it's entirely possible the rewrites on the fly had left the plot comprehensively pot-holed and unfit for purpose. However bad things were, Whedon's remit was hair-raisingly broad. The ending had to be rewritten again, to remove any suggestion the story wasn't yet complete.
LET'S LOSE LEX
The character of Cyborg, played by Ray Fisher, who'd only been glimpsed in Batman v Superman, had to be substantially reworked. Jesse Eisenberg's return as Lex Luthor was cut out entirely, as was the Flash's love interest Iris West, played by Kiersey Clemons.
Even scenes that had seemed to work well enough in the early trailers were taken apart and Whedonised. At a cost of $25-million, two months of reshoots were scheduled, and in a recently released clip of Bruce Wayne's first meeting with Jason Momoa's Aquaman the eagle-eyed might spot Affleck's hairline and beard changing from shot to shot.
WATCH | The Justice League trailer
Musical changes were also afoot: Hans Zimmer, swearing off superheroes, stepped down from soundtrack duties in June 2016, to be replaced by his Batman v Superman collaborator Junkie XL - who was replaced in turn by Danny Elfman a year after that.
Affleck was also having a tumultuous time of it. During the initial Justice League shoot he'd been simultaneously editing his gangster drama Live By Night, while in March and April he underwent treatment for alcoholism.
Cavill, meanwhile, was tied up filming Mission: Impossible 6 with Tom Cruise. His schedule was altered to accommodate the Justice League reshoots, but Paramount forbade him from shaving off a luxuriant moustache he'd grown especially for their film - which meant this suddenly hairier Superman had to have his 'tache removed digitally, at a not-insignificant cost.
But this was all trivial in light of tragic news that broke in May. Snyder's 20-year-old daughter from his first marriage, Autumn, had committed suicide in March, and after attempting to press on with the film for two months, hoping the work might prove cathartic, the director made the difficult but necessary decision to step back. Whedon went on to direct the reshoots himself.
Then in June, a welcome shaft of light: following a promotional campaign that could be described as "tentative", Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman opened to rave reviews and sold-out screenings. It was the franchise's first unqualified hit, and suggested all might not be lost.
Whether Justice League even attempts to recapture the bushy-tailed derring-do of Jenkins's film remains to be seen. But in a recent interview, Affleck described the film's Batman as "more in keeping with the canon of how Batman's usually been portrayed ... This is more the Batman you would find if you opened up your average Batman comic book."
In short, over the making of a single movie, some of the most valuable characters in comic books have been deconstructed, reassembled, lightened up, rewound and reinterpreted, only to have seemingly wound up roughly where they started.
Was it worth it? Barring another round of reshoots, we and Warner Bros are about to find out. - The Telegraph, London
