What Happened to the DC Movie Universe?

Back in 2013 the idea of a cinematic universe was pretty much exclusive to marvel. So when the first DC comics movie in the newfound DC Extended Universe (DCEU) pretty much everyone was on board, given comics lend themselves great to universe style narratives and the only other universe had released seven movies two of them making a billion dollars at the box office. The only DC movies in recent memory that were not set to be connected to this universe were Green lantern and Christopher Nolan's Dark knight Trilogy. Given the success of the dark knight trilogy it made sense that DC would separate itself from Marvel by going with the successful dark tone of the Dark knight. However when reviews and audience opinion came in on Man of Steel it already was not looking good. A darker superman is introduced, going against the comic superman, many realizing that this universe was on track to make every movie dark and gritty. After Man of Steel there was a pretty long delay between movies. Unsure of themselves, three years passed before the universe started to actually feel like a universe with multiple releases a year. 2016 saw two releases, ‘Suicde Squad’ and ‘Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice’. Both of these movies are generally considered to be bad by the general audience, with some die hard fans. Which started the splintering of the DC movie universes. ‘Batman V. Superman’ saw an extended cut which was even darker than the original giving it an R rating, extended cuts are not that uncommon for movies and the general narrative stayed the same, so nothing was really affected, but this would continue to grow as an issue later on. ‘Suicide Squad’ started to have rumors of rushed reshoots, enough footage to make a Jared Leto Joker movie with the cut scenes, and the Director David Ayer voicing his frustration with how Warner Brothers not liking his cut of the movie. 2017 Saw ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Justice League’, ‘Wonder Woman’ getting the praise as the best DC movie, which I am not going to argue. Justice League had the same treatment as Suicide Squad, with another layer of problems. As it is probably well known, Zack Snyder Filmed almost Four hours of footage before unfortunately his daughter committed suicide and he immedialy left every project he was on to be with his family. Warner Brothers brought on the only director at the time to make a successful superhero team up movie, Joss Wheaton. The theatrical cut of ‘Justice League’ was almost completely reshot or used different takes from Snyders footage. The theatrical cut failed spectacularly both narratively and financially, almost as soon as it released #releasethesnydercut started.

In 2018 it seemed like DC would just continue with its one movie universe with ‘Aquaman’ being a decent movie that fits in perfectly with the rest of the universe. In early 2019 ‘SHAZAM!’ Released with a fun lighthearted movie and a good message and considered by most to be one of the best DC movies, it is only slightly related to the rest of the DC movies with a few references to events that happened in the DCEU at that point. ‘SHAZAM!’ works well in the DCEU and as just a standalone movie, unfortunately SHAZAM! Is the last movie that properly fits into the DCEU narrative.

In late 2019 the comedic Director of the Hangover trilogy Released the darkest, gritiest, and most successful Comic book movie ever. The R rated Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix broke every financial record becoming the highest earning R rated movie and becoming financially, the most successful comic book movie of all time. Considering this movie came out just a few months after the highest grossing movie of all time, being avengers Endgame. The reason Joker made more money than Avengers Endgame is the budget. Avengers endgame had a budget of 356 million dollars and percentage royalties to be paid to some of the actors. Joker however had a budget of 55 million, and the only actor to get a percentage of the profits being Joaquin. The reason the budget was so low is Warner Brothers. Not thinking that the movie would be successful they kept the budget as low as humanly possible, cutting the time they could film, and generally getting in the way of Todd Phillips. This movie is narratively completely separate from any of the other DC movies or shows up to this point, and has been said to be in its own universe in the greater DC multiverse.

In 2020 DC released two movies still technically in the DCEU ‘Birds of Prey’ and ‘Wonder Woman 1984’. Birds of prey is set separately from suicide squad and essentially writing the Original suicide squad completltey out of Harley Quinn’s story. Birds of Prey is generally considered a bad movie by most, but does have a cult following of supporters, me being one of them. There are several characters that connect to different heroes Especially Batman, with black mask, Harley Quinn, and Cassandra Cain being directly tied to the masked vigilante, but is the total amount of connection to the DCEU. The other 2020 DC movie being ‘Wonder Woman 1984’. While being a direct sequel to Wonder Woman and being a prequel to most of the DCEU at that point. Wonder Woman 1984 is easily the worst movie in the universe and sets up so many narrative issues and plot holes with the DCEU. I personally had many problems with it and many others voiced their issues, from costume designers, to visual effects everyone dislikes this movie. The sad part is that ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ looks like it will be the last movie in the DCEU for several years.

2021 is a weird year for DC considering that the two movies being released are remakes of DC movies from just a few years ago. Already released is Zack Snyder's Justice league (ZSJL) which is the scenes that Zack shot and 25 million dollars added onto it for CGI and a few more scenes. With ZSJL HBO Max has shown an intense increase in downloads and subscriptions which is as much as a streaming service only movie can get. The Four hour movie is a giant narrative improvement on the theatrical cut but is in its own universe, again separate from the DCEU. Instead this movie is part of what is now called the snyderverse. A separate universe of DC Movies that has no Warner Brothers interference being, Man of steel, the extended cut of Batman V Superman, and ZSJL, and the two planned Justice league Sequels that Zack was supposed to direct, but has now been cut out of pretty much anything DC related, and will never be filmed. When ZSJL was released there were some talks and issues between the actors and the theatrical cut director Joss Wheaton but when the movie came out, the true information on that did too. According to Ray Fisher, and Gal Gadot, Joss would verbally abuse them if they had issues with his vision. Ben Affleck on set tried to organize a cast walk out which didn’t quite happen. Gadot said Joss would ruin her career if she didn’t film a sexual harassment joke scene with her and flash. Given that the cast loves Zack and WB shut him out but let Joss do what he wanted tells me that Warner Brothers (WB) doesn’t care about the people who work for them or making a good movie, but making money instead.

In 2009 DC had a taste of Zack Snyder when he directed Watchmen, and they liked him enough then to sign him on as the lead creative mind for their DC comic book movie universe and now after just a few movies they have shut him out of the universe, stopped any more of his involvement and had his last project completely rewritten. The thing is that DC has something that the Marvel movies really do not, the uniqueness of movies. Pretty much every movie in the DC universe feels pretty unique and distinct from the others except the three Zack Snyder Movies. ‘Wonder Woman’ doesn’t feel similar to ‘SHAZAM!’ or ‘Aquaman’ The DCEU started with the idea that Great Directors can make their own unique take on legendary DC heroes. With directors like James wan, Zack Snyder, David Sandburg, and Todd Phillips all being unique directors with their own style. WB got what they wanted and they didn’t like it, with the second round of Justice league being a massive success for HBO Max and James Gunns Suicide Squad breaking the record for most watched Red Band trailer ever. It's clear that fans love and support the directors and their unique vision but hate WB. Given that James Gunn’s suicide squad is a reboot of a five year old movie it is not clear as to where this will fit into the DCEU or be independent. Thankfully James Gunn is known for little known bad guy team up movies from Guardians of the Galaxy, and he has said that this is his movie with no notes from WB.

With three DC projects that are still set to be released being Matt Reeves ‘The Batman,’ Andres Muschietti’s Flash Movie, and the now announced "Black superman movie" which it is not so affectionately being called. First off though, the Matt Reeves ‘The Batman’ movie is set to release next year. However it was first starting to come into fruition all the way back in 2014. When Ben Affleck was announced to be in Batman Vs. Superman as Batman that there would be a movie with him as the lead in a solo batman movie. After going through pre production purgatory with writers, and directors, dropping like flies the project was dropped for a while until it was picked up by Matt Reeves and had Robert Pattinson recast as Bruce Wayne. This movie is no longer related to the main DCEU or any other DC projects in the future, making it the second DC movie not to be attached to the DCEU, and ironically the characters in those two movies are DC’s most famous. The second movie is Andres Muschietti’s Flash movie, which had the same pre production purgatory but managed to break out and stay connected to the DCEU. The plot of the movie is going to be the famous comic flashpoint storyline. Where the plot is based on a good and bad timeline, that flash created after going back and saving his mom from dying. Both Timelines each have a batman, Micheal keaton to come back and play Thomas Wayne as batman, since in the bad timeline Bruce’s dad is batman. Even though Jefferey Dean Morgan played Thomas Wayne in Batman V. Superman. Now it is announced that Ben Affleck will be coming back playing his Bruce Wayne in the other timeline. Meaning that in 2022 there are going to be three different actors portraying Batman in two movies that aren’t even connected to each other. Then with the most recent DC announcement, the "Black superman" movie. Given that it was announced very recently no casting or directors have been announced but even with none of that announced DC and WB managed to still mess it up. The first problem is that following the Snydercut Zack announced that he wanted Jon Stewart to be with Martian Manhunter in the last scene, WB cut that actor from the scene. They also cut Ray Fisher from the Flash movie, and ended his cyborg movie. On Henry Cavill’s Birthday DC announced that they would be making a Superman movie starring a still unknown african american actor. This seems like a good decision to bring diversity to the superhero landscape, but the superman is Kal-El. As I mentioned earlier Jon Stewart is a aftrcan american green lantern in the comics, you’ll notice that its not Hal Jordan. To put this blunder into perspective imagine Marvel announced that they will be making a movie with an african american Peter parker, if that announcement came out people would scratch their heads and think: "Couldn’t they just make a Miles Morales movie?" The answer is yes, in the comics there are different kryptonian races and Cal-El is not the only one to escape the planet, so WB could have very easily made this movie a Val-Zod Movie and keep Henry Cavill as Cal-El, but they decided to not do that. Since this movie has a african american Cal-El and is an origin story it is likely that it will be another standalone movie, not connected to the DCEU. They also announced that they would be looking for a african american director, which is just weird. The actor does need to be a certain race for a role, but the director does not. Announcing that you are looking for someone behind the camera to be a certain race, to me, feels disingenue and that they are only doing it to get diversity points and not to make a good movie. Which contrasts their need to cut the already existing African American characters, like setting up Jon Stewart in ZSJL or building up Cyborg instead of cutting his involvement in other movies and shutting down his own movie.

Now I can hear people saying that I have not considered the Shows and how that introduced the multiverse into DC shows and movies. However I haven’t seen the shows enough to get to that part of them and I am betting that a vast majority of people haven’t either. That's the point, most people just watch the movies because it's easier to see a two and half hour movie over a twenty three episode a season show with eight seasons like Arrow. From here it looks like we have an incredibly greedy, arguably racist company that doesn’t understand what trusting a director means for a movie. On the good side the general public is beginning to realize their power. I’d say that the start of the power of the public influence on movie making is the now famous Sonic the Hedgehog redesign, when that happened, #realsethesnydercut was starting to gain traction. People's voices mean something now more than ever because it has become more difficult to get people to watch a movie in theaters which is where the studio’s make the most money. If there is a studio that is doing something wrong or just stupid voice your concerns and if enough people voice their concerns the studio will change it maybe not with that movie or decision but if they lose money on that project then they will learn for the next project. Your voice has value and if you feel a certain way we can all collectively change the cinema world for the better.