Amid Warner Bros.’ merging with Discovery, David Zaslav has taken over the studio and has some big plans for Warner’s DC properties. His first controversial move as Warner’s new chief was to cut $90 million batgirl movie that was nearing completion just for a tax write-off. To justify that write-off, batgirl film — which Warner recently considered moving from a streaming release to theatrical release — won’t see the light of day on any platform. That batgirl got the can, the blue beetle movie, starring a little-known C-list superhero, and The flash movie, starring serial criminal Ezra Miller, are probably close.
James Gunn has assured fans that the second season of peacekeeper is still going on, but in-development projects such as the night wing movie and the black canary spin-off and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman threequel may not be so lucky. Right now, Zaslav is mercilessly stripping left and right as he settles into his throne and rethinks DC Films output. But he doesn’t just cut movies and stream shows for the sake of it; he plans to reshape and reconfigure the entire DC Extended Universe so that the franchise will finally have some coherence. According to his ambitious DCEU plans, Zaslav will announce new projects in their place soon enough.
From the very beginning, the DCEU has been a failed attempt to match Marvel’s success with an interconnected movie franchise. Zaslav believes he has a solution: start from scratch and try to copy the MCU from scratch. He brings in a team of executives to act as a Kevin Feige collective of sorts to oversee the on-screen processing of lucrative DC Comics properties. According to the Hollywood reporterZaslav has “a 10-year plan” to revamp the DCEU with a more tightly structured film verse built around “brands known all over the world” such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.
The problem with the original DCEU was that it rushed to catch up with Marvel. As Marvel rolled out its carefully planned storylines in a series of phases, DC crammed the entire Justice League – and, bizarrely, the “Death of Superman” storyline – into just the second film. Now that Warner is starting all over again, they are even further behind Marvel. But the decades-long nature of Zaslav’s plan is a promising sign. In any case, he is not in a hurry. The new DCEU must introduce its rebooted heroes on their own terms before teaming up for ensemble spin-offs.
Superman had long since had a reboot, and fans are already happy with the on-screen incarnations of Wonder Woman and Aquaman (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but the Dark Knight presents a snag in Zaslav’s plot to the DCEU. Just a few months ago, Matt Reeves was building his own cinematic universe around Batman. Designed to be completely separate from the existing DCEU, the batter has the green light for its first sequel, and a second is expected to complete the trilogy. Additionally, Colin Farrell is starring in a Penguin streaming series for HBO Max and a Gotham PD police proceeding has been transformed into an Arkham Asylum horror show. So, how does this all fit into Zaslav’s ten-year plan to rejuvenate DC Films’ output?
Either Zaslav will let Reeves’ Bat-verse go ahead as planned and the new Warner Bros. boss will introduce yet another Batman within his 10-year plan to reboot the DCEU, or he’ll force Reeves’ next Bat projects to to fit into the ambitious MCU-esque universe he will be rolling out over the next decade. The second option is the most likely, but connecting to a universe of gods and aliens would undermine the grounded tone that Reeves so carefully the batter. The whole point of the batter – the mobster Penguin, the zodiac-inspired Riddler, the practical Batmobile – was that it could take place in the real world (within reasonable limits). When Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne starts walking shoulder to shoulder with Superman and Aquaman and Wonder Woman, that realism will go right out the window.
The best way might be to Reeves’ the batter franchise and Zaslav’s redesigned DCEU. Warner can’t have a DC Comics-based cinematic universe without the Caped Crusader, but audiences might not go for two concurrent Batman franchises. Moviegoers are already getting super-hero tired. It will take the crown as studios start doubling down on franchises starring their flagship comic book heroes. But with a character as iconic and beloved as Batman, it could work – if the new version in Zaslav’s rebooted DCEU is different enough.
Reeves went double on the darkness in his own retelling of the Dark Knight’s story. the batter arguably the grimiest, darkest, most violent Batman movie yet. Zaslav can go the other way with a crazy, light-hearted Adam Westian take on Batman mythology. Not only would a crazier, crazier incarnation of the Bat stand out from Reeves’ trilogy and provide the audience with a breath of fresh air; it would also be better suited to a universe with an Amazon princess, a Mars shape-shifter, and an orphaned ET who grew up in Kansas.
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