Scott Beggs of FilmSchoolRejects recently wrote an interesting piece about storytelling in our digital age.

In it he holds:

“Going behind the scenes has become the scene. Trailers have become the true first act of any movie. Casting announcements introduce us to characters now.”

Our digital age means almost all information is at hand, which implies, “We’re now fully an anti-shock culture.”

He goes on to discuss Batman v Superman and — spoiler alert — the Man of Steel’s demise. Apparently director Christopher Nolan wanted to hold on the casket shot and then cut to the credits, without any dirt floating up, the idea being to leave the audience thinking he’s gone, bit the dirt, so to speak. (Disclosure — I have not seen this film.)

Scott then points out that actor Henry Cavill has been announced for The Justice League (2017) — thereby resurrecting the Last Son of Krypton.

My take: I think this is can only be true. The sheer amount of information and the myriad ways we have available to access it mean we can’t help but be exposed to official and fan-provided media around any project. In the past, only big companies could feed us a steady diet of advertising and PR — now we gorge non-stop at the Information Super-Highway All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. See also, Scott’s post on Every Movie is a TV Show is a Book is a Broadway Play is a Video Game. More and more, a Producer’s job is to manage IP rights and not necessarily just to produce a feature or a TV show.