It’s interesting how one person’s idea of confusion is another’s clear plan.
Since the shocking cancellation of Batgirl last week, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav has shaken the DC foundations, and it has to be said for the better.
Now, Zaslav, advisor Alan Horn and new Warner Bros Pictures Co-Chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy are laying the fresh ground for an inter-connected universe. Meanwhile, leaving Todd Phillips and Matt Reeves to continue to play in their own sandboxes.
I will say the whole handling of the Batgirl situation was done poorly. They should’ve announced a project led by Leslie Grace and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah the week before; it would’ve shown no hard feelings and belief in the creatives.
While the shelving of the $90 million streaming movie was mainly done for tax reasons, it was a necessary pain to experience as they plan to lay out the next 10 years of DC.
The first sign of that was during the WBD’s earnings call, where DC was shown to be its own studio like WB and New Line, in a similar move Disney did with Marvel.
During that call, the media mogul took a shot at former WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar’s strategy by moving away entirely from straight-to-streaming films and DC movies should only be seen in theatres.
“We are going to focus on quality. We are not going to release any film before it’s ready.
“DC is something we can make better,” he added.
Kilar did have successes with DC, but the decision to greenlight and cast a Wonder Twins movie shows a plan wasn’t really there. Luckily Zaslav pulled the plug on that real quick in what was his first movie as CEO.
While those remakes annoyed those within the studio, even DC Films president Walter Hamada was close to leaving over Batgirl, but has been convinced to stay on until the release of Black Adam on October 21.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed the Dwayne Johnson-led superhero movie was recently test screened and included a brand new post-credits scene that makes Johnson’s place in the DC Universe moving forward much clearer.
They also revealed the previous plan was to build up towards a Crisis On Infinite Earths. Unless we knew the concrete situation with Henry Cavill’s Superman, the Flash might’ve been the launching pad for that.
It was also revealed that The Flash underwent its scheduled reshoots over the summer, surprisingly without any issues, before Ezra Miller was a knob again, getting himself arrested again this week.
I feel like the additional photography is so The Flash would have a different ending to close the chapter on this version of the DCEU and Snyderverse.
Ideally, the movie would end similar to this scene from Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, but with Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne telling Barry Allen that he needs to do another Flashpoint and the movie ends with a bright white light.
The new post-credit scene in Black Adam would foreshadow this, similar to Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Where Tom Hardy’s symbiote sees Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, as a hint to a new DC Universe.
During Keaton’s speech (if this is the case), have something like “some things will change, some things will stay the same, the world will be better, or worse. But something needs to happen. The earth needs a fresh start.”
This will help audiences prepare to see a new DC Universe with a new Superman, Batman, Flash and maybe a new Wonder Woman. At the same time, having a new Aquaman, Black Adam, Peacemaker and Shazam family, to name a few.
Just recently, Idris Elba said he has big plans at DC and wants to fight Superman.
The report states the studio has spoken to some key collaborators to give them reassurances their projects are safe, with The Suicide Squad‘s James Gunn confirming Peacemaker season two is still going ahead.
Meanwhile, Blue Beetle is still set to release in August 2023 after the Xolo Maridueña-led movie will be DC’s first Latina-led superhero movie. Zaslav saw potential in it early, promoting it from HBO Max to theatrical.
Another potentially exciting thing would be the involvement of the Secret Six, a villainous version of the anti-hero Suicide Squad team, and I could see them appearing against Amanda Waller’s group of misfit supervillains in the next movie.
The exciting thing about Blue Beetle is it could be a film solely away from any universe and be its own thing or be its own thing and hint to the future of the DC Universe.
Zaslav has shown great leadership recently. If De Luca and Abdy can convince both the CEO and Hamada to become President of DC Studios (unless they bring in a Peter Cook, which would also be a top appointment), the future will be bright for WBD and DC.
The Bear Cave 