It's no secret that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has been one of the more divisive superhero movies of the last few years. The film debuted to mixed reactions in 2016, and its progression of some key DCEU characters has polarized some of the people who saw the film. These criticisms have reached Batman v Superman cinematographer Larry Fong in the time since, and he recently revealed how he's felt after hearing from the fans. Responding to critiques of the film on the ComicBook Debate podcast, Fong explained:
It kind of hurts because, you know, I put almost a year of my life, including my whole crew, you know living away from our families, making a lot of sacrifices to make a movie like that. And, everyone has their opinion. Does everyone have to love the movie? Of course not, but it's like your baby; you put a lot of work into it.
That seems like something that sometimes gets ignored in the process of criticizing a movie. Larry Fong has heard the fan complaints about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and he's not particularly happy about them considering he worked on the film for a year and committed a crew of filmmakers to work hard on it. Even though he never expected everyone to love the movie, the wave of negativity still hurt.
With all of that said, some fans have made that case that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is still a good-looking movie, but it seems that Larry Fong doesn't want to entertain that praise if it means the fans can still tear down Zack Snyder. Elsewhere in his interview on the ComicBook Debate podcast, Fong explained:
You know, visually I feel like me and my crew killed it, so when you hear things about it, it kind of hurts. But, to be honest the weirdest thing -- I've never really talked about this -- but the weirdest thing, and this has happened a lot, I'll have a stranger come up and say, 'You know, Batman v Superman really sucked, but don't worry, what you did was great. It looked really good. It wasn't your fault.'And I listened to that for a while and was like, 'K, well thanks.' But then the more I thought about it I thought I'm not going to accept that. Because everyone's working towards a common goal, right? And Zack's my brother, I'm not gonna go, 'Oh yeah, you know, he did a horrible job, but I didn't! I just did my job. That's right!' I don't accept that. If you make a baby together you're proud of that baby. And you can't really divide it up.
That point is something that has popped up consistently since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice debuted. Though the film did attract criticism for a wide variety of issues, and it even spurred a petition to have Zack Snyder removed from the production of Justice League, elements like Fong's cinematography and Ben Affleck's Batman did receive praise. Those positive elements are definitely a facet of the movie, as well. It's worth remembering, too, that the folks behind these movies do hear us when we choose to criticize a film bluntly, and even if we did like some aspects of the film, it's still a movie that was created by a team and not just a bunch of individual voices.
Now, with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice behind us, we look ahead to all of the DCEU films that are currently in development. Next on the agenda is James Wan's Aquaman, which will premiere in theaters later this year on December 21.
