The DCEU.
Has there ever been a bigger source of frustration, controversy, and outright anger for modern Nerds?
While we’ll leave the debate over quality to the online message boards, we can let the box office tell the only story that matters-the bottom line. And while the DCEU has had its successes, they are often weighed down by its failures.
Essentially the DCEU’s pattern can be summed up as one step forward, one step backwards. Wonder Woman-a commercial and critical success-is followed by the bomb that was Justice League. Aquaman breaks the billion dollar club only to be followed by underwhelming box office performer Shazam! Joker becomes the DCEU’s most lucrative movie to date only to be followed up by Birds of Prey, which soared under just about everyone’s radar.
Which all begged question; how was Warner Bros. going to fix the DCEU mess, a mess created by a foolish rush to catch up to the MCU (which spent years patiently building its brand into a bulletproof juggernaut)?
Do you reboot the whole thing, shoving the bombs under the rug and hoping for the best moving forward? Well that would erase Gal Gadot’s turn as Wonder Woman and Jason Mamoa’s as Aquaman, the only successful solo movies the DCEU has under their belt. Could there be any more Justice League movies following 2017’s Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon mess? Could Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker possibly exist in DC’s shared universe since he would need a walker to get around by the time Bruce Wayne donned the cape and cowl? And speaking of the Bat, what could DC do with their most popular (and profitable) character since they had already established that he was on the back nine of his super hero career while the rest of the Justice League was just starting theirs?
And it seems like the rumours of a Flash movie were becoming just that-rumours with zero credibility behind them.
Until last summer when in one fell swoop, DC used their Fandome event to restart the hype machine that has largely ignored the brand and reshape their stumbling shared movie universe.
Sure, the new trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 (still very tentatively scheduled for release this Christmas) got people re-interested in the follow up to DC’s first real hit. And the teasers for the Snyder Cut of Justice League (scheduled for some time next year) and James Gunn’s reinvented Suicide Squad (next summer?) got people talking again (so did the first taste of the new Suicide Squad video game, Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League).
One of the event’s real stars was the first look at the new movie starring the Dark Knight Detective, The Batman, which silenced many of Robert Pattinson critics. There was even a tidbit about Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie and Shazam!’s eventual sequel.
But the piece de resistance was the news that Ezra Miller’s Flash solo movie wasn’t only still a thing, but was the key to reinventing DC’s troubled movie franchise.
Remember all those aforementioned questions about the DCEU? The how’s and the why’s and the who’s? How could an aging Joker exist beside Batman? And whose Batman would it be? (The Dark Knight’s cinematic representations are sort of like a multiple choice quiz at this point). Would Henry Cavill still be Superman? If not, who would replace him? Would that mean an entire (another) reboot for the Man of Steel’s movies? Would the new Suicide Squad movie be a sequel? If it was a reboot, how do you explain using some of the same characters and actors as the 2016 entry?
After Fandome, the answer to all those questions now is . . . drum roll please . . . it doesn’t matter.
DC has embraced the idea of a multiverse for its popular stable of CW shows, using the idea to bring characters from different realities together to battle universe-level threats once a season or so. The annual crossover has become a fan favourite event every season (it looks like the only thing that could slow the event’s popularity was a global pandemic) and has allowed them to use characters from cancelled shows and even ones who appear on other networks.
Given the CW’s success, we should have figured the multiverse concept was going to be their silver bullet of choice to repair the DCEU. They practically gave it away when Ezra Miller’s Flash turned up on the CW show of the same name, offering two different versions of the same character existing side by side.
Which is fitting since the Flash will be the key to DC’s film renaissance. His 2022 solo movie will not only introduce the concept of the multiverse, but will unleash it. There is no definitive version of the Batman because they all exist simultaneously (one of Fandome’s biggest announcements was that both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck could be reprising their respective Batmen for the Flash movie). You can have two different yet similar versions of the Justice League and Suicide Squad moving forward, they just exist in different realities. You can reprise Jared Leto’s Joker without interfering with any future visions starring Joaquin Phoenix.
There are no more boundaries or restraints or obstacles of stubborn canon. Not only does the DCEU have much more room to breathe, but it can course correct all of its errors without erasing its successes.
And not only that, but think of all the easter eggs it could plant to get the news cycle spinning. What if the Flash passed by a Diagon Alley signpost on one of his reality-bending jaunts? Or ran through a future timeline where people called Blade Runners hunted down synthetic humans? No legit cross overs mind you, but think of all the fan drool that would result from so many quick little jolts.
More importantly, since they won’t be worrying about bumping into other branches of the franchise tree, this will allow film makers to expand their stories and characters and offer them a flexibility they haven’t had before. In short, it will allow the DCEU and the creative minds behind it to take more risks, a luxury they currently don’t have.
And the DCEU will finally have an identity.
Make no mistake, this is just the first step in revitalizing DC’s shared movie universe. The movies have to successful as well. If WW1984 or The Batman or Suicide Squad don’t land, it could put the DCEU right back to square one. And if the Snyder Cut of Justice League doesn’t live up to the hype, there will be absolute hell to pay.
There will also be plenty of comparisons to the MCU, who will be introducing their Multiverse in next year’s WandaVision DisneyPlus show and continuing it in Dr. Strange 2 (how much you wanna bet that’s how they introduce the X-Men and Fantastic Four?).
And let’s not forget the biological elephant in the room. The COVID-19 Pandemic is still wreaking havoc across the entire planet. Everyone’s release schedule is still in flux, with many of DC’s highly anticipated releases all getting pushed back (and sentencing Dwayne Johnson’s highly anticipated Black Adam solo movie to limbo).
But so far so good. The nerd-o-sphere and mainstream media alike were buzzing over DC’s new plans and projects following Fandome. Odds are a few more well placed trailers and snippets over the coming months will have the rumour will firmly churning in DC’s favour once again.
And if they can mange to leverage HBO Max into a supportive tool the way Marvel plans to use DisneyPlus, well we could finally have have that knock down street fight between two giant super hero cinematic power houses we always hoped for.
And competition is always great for the consumer.
Image thedirect.com
