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- [00:06]
Jessica Mendoza
Can you introduce yourself, please? Sure.
- [00:08]
Ben Fritz
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 years ago called With Great Power, all about superhero movies.
- [00:21]
Jessica Mendoza
Ben is our in house superhero expert and I wanted to talk to him about one of the first super superheroes, Superman.
- [00:32]
Ben Fritz
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.
- [00:47]
Jessica Mendoza
Superheroes or comic books, you 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. Faster than a speeding bullet.
- [01:09]
Ben Fritz
More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.
- [01:14]
Jessica Mendoza
And today, the latest version of the man of Steel flies back into theaters.
- [01:20]
Ben Fritz
My father once told me, it's not about what you can do, Clark. It's about what. What you choose to do. That's why I choose to protect this world. It's a reboot, which means they're starting over from scratch with a whole new cast and a whole new mythos. And this Superman movie is sort of really trying to balance these very comic book y elements, these slightly silly, not quite real elements, which is sort of what goes along with Superman, with very real grounded moral quandaries.
- [01:51]
Jessica Mendoza
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. How bad are things for DC and Warner Bros. Discovery's movie aspirations right now?
- [02:20]
Ben Fritz
They're basically starting from virtually zero. I mean, their movie strategy is basically grinded to a halt over the past few years. They've had again, 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.
- [02:49]
Jessica Mendoza
Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, July 11th, coming up on the show. It's a bird, it's a plane. It's Superman. Can he save Warner Brothers struggling business?
- [03:17]
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- [03:53]
Jessica Mendoza
What does Superman mean to you, Ben?
- [03:55]
Ben Fritz
I really remember Superman ii. He gets in a big fight with like these three villains from Krypton General. 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 superpowered people?
- [04:12]
Jessica Mendoza
But somehow the math wasn't mathing.
- [04:14]
Ben Fritz
Yeah. Yeah, but he did it. That's why he's Superman.
- [04:17]
Jessica Mendoza
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.
- [04:29]
Ben Fritz
That makes sense.
- [04:30]
Jessica Mendoza
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.
- [04:42]
Ben Fritz
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.
- [05:01]
Jessica Mendoza
Easy, miss.
- [05:02]
Ben Fritz
I've got you. You've got me. Who's got you?
- [05:06]
Jessica Mendoza
Christopher reeve starred in three more Superman films in the 80s. Those 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.
- [05:21]
Ben Fritz
You're a monster, Zod, and I'm gonna stop you. That was Henry Cavill played Superman. He then played Superman again in Batman v 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.
- [05:42]
Jessica Mendoza
I mean, that's a lot of adaptations.
- [05:44]
Ben Fritz
A lot of adaptations. Absolutely.
- [05:48]
Jessica Mendoza
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?
- [06:03]
Ben Fritz
There are two things that are really hard about Superman. One is he has God like powers. So how do you give him a really interesting challenge? His arch villain is Lex Luthor, who's incredibly smart, but not strong.
- [06:15]
Jessica Mendoza
But it's just like a guy.
- [06:16]
Ben Fritz
He's just a guy. Right. So how do you have an action movie in which the protagonist is the most powerful being on earth?
- [06:24]
Jessica Mendoza
Right.
- [06:24]
Ben Fritz
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?
- [06:47]
Jessica Mendoza
That'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.
- [07:05]
Ben Fritz
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 and Batman is this regular person who experiences trauma and does extraordinary things in the world, but is still ultimately a tortured regular human being. And a lot of people can relate to that too.
- [07:30]
Jessica Mendoza
Yeah, it's hard to relate to an alien who was dropped here by parents from another child.
- [07:34]
Ben Fritz
Yes, exactly. Right, right. Nobody has a backstory that's remotely similar to Superman's.
- [07:39]
Jessica Mendoza
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.
- [07:48]
Ben Fritz
No.
- [07:50]
Jessica Mendoza
And the Wonder Woman sequel, Barbara, what did you do? And the Flash. You should seek the services of a mental health professional. The Justice League is not very good.
- [08:01]
Ben Fritz
At that part yet, trust me.
- [08:03]
Jessica Mendoza
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.
- [08:15]
Ben Fritz
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 that's really been damaging because Marvel has brought a lot of profits and a lot of value to Disney and DC hasn't done it for Warner.
- [08:36]
Jessica Mendoza
So all those flops have been a huge sore spot for DC's parent company.
- [08:40]
Ben Fritz
DC is 100% owned by Warner Brothers. 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.
- [08:54]
Jessica Mendoza
On top of its troubles with D.C. warner Bros. Discovery is now in the middle of a major overhaul. It was three years ago that WarnerMedia merged with Discovery Communications.
- [09:04]
Ben Fritz
And, you know, that brought together the big famous movie studio and HBO Max, a streaming service, and these Discovery cable networks. It 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.
- [09:22]
Jessica Mendoza
Earlier this year, Warner Bros. 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.
- [09:42]
Ben Fritz
The kind of growth company, the one that they hope has a future, is going to be called Studios and Streaming, and that's the Warner Bros. 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, like, they really need DC to work.
- [10:09]
Jessica Mendoza
But if he's such a tricky character to adapt and Warner Brothers needs this big win, why is this a job for Superman?
- [10:17]
Ben Fritz
Well, you know, I've spoken to some people who've worked at D.C. 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. Like, 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 in dc. So, you know, of course Warner Bros. Wants this movie to be a huge box office hit, but what they really need is for people to be excited about DC again.
- [10:47]
Jessica Mendoza
The man that DC hopes will get people excited about Superman, he's next. So a Lot riding on sort of the revival of Superman in this moment.
- [11:12]
Ben Fritz
Absolutely.
- [11:13]
Jessica Mendoza
Who is at the helm of this at dc? Can you talk about him?
- [11:16]
Ben Fritz
So this movie's 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.
- [11:29]
Jessica Mendoza
Love that.
- [11:30]
Ben Fritz
Yes. Very random fact. And he's this really brash, outspoken, punk rock kind of a guy.
- [11:37]
Jessica Mendoza
James Gunn is best known as the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, one of Marvel's most popular film franchises. I am.
- [11:45]
Ben Fritz
Well, that's just as fascinating as the first 89 times you told me that. What is wrong with giving tree here?
- [11:54]
Jessica Mendoza
So James Gunn directed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. The first one of those movies is probably up there for me in terms of my favorite Marvel movies. But it's a Marvel movie.
- [12:05]
Ben Fritz
Yeah.
- [12:05]
Jessica Mendoza
And Marvel is DC's arch nemesis.
- [12:07]
Ben Fritz
Yes.
- [12:08]
Jessica Mendoza
So how or why did Gunn switch sides?
- [12:11]
Ben Fritz
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.
- [12:25]
Jessica Mendoza
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. Gunn apologized for those tweets, and all.
- [12:37]
Ben Fritz
The Guardians cast, like, 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.
- [12:45]
Jessica Mendoza
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.
- [12:53]
Ben Fritz
The head of Warner Bros. Movie division ran into Peter Safran, who was James Gunn's manager and producing partner in the gym on. 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. Would 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.
- [13:23]
Jessica Mendoza
That 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.
- [13:52]
Ben Fritz
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, there was the TV shows and they had nothing to do with the DC movies. But Warner Bros. 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.
- [14:16]
Jessica Mendoza
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. Storytelling 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, 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?
- [15:10]
Ben Fritz
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? Who'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.
- [15:31]
Jessica Mendoza
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?
- [15:39]
Ben Fritz
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 sort of say, what more can they do? I 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 for Warner Brothers. It's not quite existential, but it's very important. 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.
- [16:27]
Jessica Mendoza
It does feel a little bit like a gamble though, right? I mean, D.C. has sort of been playing catch up to Marvel for the past decade or so, if not more. What makes this different? Is there concern that it doesn't pan out?
- [16:42]
Ben Fritz
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely a gamble. I mean, there's a lot at stake just in the execution. Are people going to like Superman and everything to come? And there's broader concerns about superhero fatigue. 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.
- [17:10]
Jessica Mendoza
What does success look like for Superman? Are there targets that the film needs to hit to be considered a success? Internally, especially.
- [17:18]
Ben Fritz
Yeah, people internally at Warner Brothers saying this movie's got to GROSS at least $500 million. 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.
- [17:43]
Jessica Mendoza
It's almost like a test case.
- [17:44]
Ben Fritz
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I talked to fans who were outside the Superman premiere and they were telling me, like, I'm gonna judge D.C. based on what James Gunn can do with Superman because they've given him the keys to the kingdom.
- [17:55]
Jessica Mendoza
And you've seen the Superman sort of ahead of opening weekend. Are you gonna see it with your kids once it's out?
- [18:03]
Ben Fritz
Yes. Well, my son, who's 13, is at Camp currently, but when he comes back, I'm gonna 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.
- [18:13]
Jessica Mendoza
Wait, he's not a 13 year old boy, is not excited about superheroes?
- [18:17]
Ben Fritz
Yeah, 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?
- [18:28]
Jessica Mendoza
Well, hope Maybe this is the movie. Maybe this is the movie that gets them.
- [18:31]
Ben Fritz
Maybe this will be the. Yeah. Hope springs eternal.
- [18:38]
Jessica Mendoza
That'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 Jo Flynt. The show's made by Katherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Carlos Garcia, Rachel Humphries, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knudson, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez De la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Allen Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis and me, Jessica Mendoza. Our 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 Kathryn Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Griffin Tanner and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you on Monday. What have been. Sorry. I can hear your cat.
- [19:41]
Ben Fritz
Sorry. Okay, let me see if I can close this door.
- [19:48]
Jessica Mendoza
Thank you.