Earlier this week, the new head of DC Studios in James Gunn revealed the news he had been teasing since the start of 2023, the overall new slate of DC productions for the foreseeable future. As described by Gunn himself, this is a carefully planned out template to give the DC Universe itself some form of connective tissue with one of another in terms of it’s movies, shows, and video games. With 2023 bringing the end of the current DCEU with the four movies such as Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, with The Flash basically acting as a reset to it’s timeline, 2024 and onwards will bring forward the new content in the form of the now titled DC Universe and DC Elseworlds. The DC Universe will include content involving movies and shows that will be shared and take place in their own form of continuity. DC Elseworlds will refer to content outside of the continuity of the DC Universe that will mostly act as their own stand-alone stories. The first chapter of the DC Universe (which I imagine will be similar to that of the phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) is referred to as Gods & Monsters. While I’m sure we will get more info throughout the year as we get closer to the beginning of this new DC canon, this is what the overall plan for DC looks like for at least the next four to five years.
When looking at it, this seems like this is what Warner Bros has been looking to do with DC for at least the past decade. By not so much trying to play catch-up with Marvel and more carefully laying out their foundation with some intriguing voices behind it, this is a good way for WB to hit the reset button on their DC properties and offer a fresh new start to their next crop of movies and shows. It will allow to create the kind of straight forward continuity that the prior DC universe tried but ultimately failed to do while also being able to have mainstream audiences keep track of what’s going on with DC without much confusion. It will also help to include the likes of James Gunn who has had experience of being able to deliver crowd pleasing comic book properties onto the big screen and streaming services such as Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad, and Peacemaker in ways that Zack Snyder couldn’t do with his feature DC films. Despite this slate sounding like a good idea on paper, I still can’t help but think most of this sounds very been there and done that.
First off, despite what certain folks might claim, DC’s biggest problem in the past was NOT that they didn’t have a so-called plan for their universe. They actually did exactly that when Zack Snyder was in charge of DC movies. After Man of Steel came out and the wave of the success of The Avengers had hit the movie industry, that persuade Warner Bros to let Snyder be the guide to creating their own cinematic universe that compete with Marvel. Even before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice came out, there were plans for a Suicide Squad movie, Wonder Woman movie, Aquaman movie, Flash movie, and not one but TWO Justice League movies. However, despite most of those movies eventually getting made and making some sort of profit, they mostly didn’t turn out to be the success that Warner Bros wanted.
Even though it was a hit at the box office, Dawn of Justice got universally panned by critics and was divisive at best for mainstream audiences. The backlash was so strong that WB had to go back and do reshoots for upcoming features such Suicide Squad and Justice League to try to make it more “mainstream friendly” and try to make them more like Marvel movies, which results in mostly the same outcome as Batman v Superman in terms of reception. The problem wasn’t that they didn’t plan far ahead, the problem was that they planned TOO far ahead. Zack Snyder or anyone at Warner Bros never gave it a second thought of one of these movies could be underperformed or get panned by critics and audiences. They were so focused on Plan A that they never bothered to give much thought to a Plan B. A plan was there, it just ultimately fell apart.
As much as Marvel has gotten praise over the years for laying the foundation of their own cinematic universe, it was never as planned out ahead as many have claimed. For example, watch all four Thor movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back with the knowledge of Thor’s involvement in the Avengers movies for good measures. I dare anyone to tell me with a straight face that all of these movies were all planned out years in advance. Do you really buy that Thor’s friends who were set up and sideline in his first two movies where made to just be killed off abruptly by his sister in Ragnarok? Or how the ending of The Dark World teased at the notion of the next one being about Thor looking for his father that Loki might’ve done something with him only for that plotline to get wrapped up in the first 20 minutes of Ragnarok? Or how the way Jane Foster was shoehorn into the The Dark World, was cast aside in Ragnarok, and would eventually become Mighty Thor by Love and Thunder? I double dare you to say “Yes!” to any one of those. While there are certainly world building pieces that the movies introduces that would be payed off later, most notably the Tesseract, along with Thor’s arc of following in his father’s footsteps, the ways to get those things across was clearly changed and made up as each movie went on.
While Kevin Feige and the heads at Marvel have always had a solid road map in mind for each phase of the MCU, it’s the ways to get to each destination that change all the time. The difference here is that they go through each movie and show one at a time and allow themselves to build their foundation up before reaching it’s full destination. The key though is to make entries that feels like you have to see every single one of them but you really don’t. With a handful of exceptions, most content in the MCU is fairly self-contained and stand well on their own with what they are trying to do with only a handful of set-up and easter eggs scattered throughout each installment that gives a potential hint towards the future. Even if a certain way to get from Point A to Point B doesn’t work out, they can always find another way around it until they can reach their goal. Unless James Gunn and Peter Safran is able to understand that philosophy that Kevin Feige has implemented with Marvel since 2008, I could see this DC slate falling into the same trappings that the previous one did.
Granted, there are a few advantages to this DC slate working better compare to Snyder’s one. Firstly, it does seem like this won’t come across as rushed and abrupted as it did before since it seems like they will be taking their time instead of trying to chase Marvel’s tail. (Many tend to forget that Man of Steel was originally meant to be it’s own standalone movie and only became the building block to creating a cinematic universe for Warner Bros after the massive success of The Avengers.) Secondly, there does seem to at least be a back-up plan if this new DC slate doesn’t work out, particularly with the other form of continuity (or lack there of) with DC Elsewords, most notably Matt Reeves’s Batverse and Todd Phillips’s Jokerverse. And lastly, as I said before, Gunn does seem to know how to make superhero content that audience all around enjoyed in a way that Snyder couldn’t. (Regardless of what you think of Man of Steel, the fact that Warner Bros was trying to make their own cinematic universe based off a movie as polarizing as that was basically made it doomed from the start.) Because of those things, I have a hard time believing that this new cinematic universe will hit rock bottom as hard as the Snyderverse did but I still need more convincing to see if this will all work out in the end.
Despite my claims and speculations made throughout this article, I don’t think James Gunn and Peter Safran will do a bad job here. They clearly have a goal in mind that Warner Bros (despite not wanting to admit it publicly) has wanted for their DC properties for a long time. My main concern is of them trying to learn the wrong lessons of the past failings from WB. Giving themselves the notion of not to plan too far ahead but plan even more ahead even if that wasn’t really the fatal flaw last time out. Thinking you need to second guess what the audiences will react to each entry and the next one that they feel the need to change each movie or show from their previous intentions all together to make it more crowd pleasing or like Marvel. Trying to build a foundation that was basically doomed from the start because you never bother to keep it in check and see if your fans and audiences would have your back along the way. If Gunn and Safran are able to avoid these outcomes, then I can see this being WB’s true answer to Marvel. If not, then I imagine we will be right back where we started by 2027.
Regardless, let’s all hope for the best for our favorite DC superheroes. After all, we are all fans here.
Here’s a video of James Gunn explaining the new slate of DC movies.
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