Looking at what happened to Batgirl, it’s pretty obvious that after the merger, the new guard at Warner Bros. Discovery wants to abandon or at least put some distance between itself and the current iteration of the DCEU (along with all the baggage associated with the effort.) But that will be an unenviable and near-impossible task for a number of reasons ranging from the impending release of Black Adam this fall to the fact that the studio still seems very bullish on the upcoming Flash movie starring actor Ezra Miller. The DCEU often felt like it was racing towards a crisis event that would either make or break the franchise. While there was a possibility that this crisis was fictional and an adaptation of one of DC’s capital-C Crises storylines, what has become much clearer in recent weeks is how bleak the future of the DCEU is and how the studio may not be working. with a solid game plan. Ezra Miller as Barry Allen in Justice League.Warner Bros. The DCEU was plagued by a number of issues long before Warner Bros. took on the Discovery name, including a general lack of coherence, subpar storytelling, and an association with a toxic fanbase whose obsession eventually turned into harassment campaigns against studio executives. Looking back, Justice League as it came out in 2017 was a haphazard attempt to reach the MCU that believed too much in the power of general familiarity with characters like Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman who didn’t really have a presence in the DCEU at the time. time. Although Justice League made a decent amount of money, it was far from the financial success that Warner Bros. wanted and needed. In the wake of the film’s poor performance at the box office, one could clearly see Warner Bros. reassessing how they wanted to create the DCEU and opening up to the idea that the traditional DC Trinity — i.e. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman — may not need to be the pillars of the brand. The DCEU was plagued by a number of issues long before Warner Bros. took on the Discovery name This concept and the unexpected success of projects like James Wan’s Aquaman and David F. Sandberg’s first Shazam! it has a lot to do with why Black Adam, a magically muscular throwback to the Bronze Age of DC comics, will headline his own movie before so many other, much better-known characters. It’s strange, sometimes, to think of Black Adam: a.) existing and b.) finally escaping development hell. But after director Todd Phillips’ first Joker and Matt Reeves’ Batman , two Elseworlds-esque stories that deliberately deviated from DCEU continuity, it looked like Warner Bros. might have settled on making big, bold, standalone films with a purpose to win over viewers. with their distinct voices. Financially, it’s no surprise that both The Joker and Batman are slated to get sequels, but instead of leaning on those objective wins, Warner Bros. Discovery apparently plans to continue chasing a white whale in MCU form. It was quite interesting to learn that Warner Bros. Discovery recently attempted an entirely new post-credits scene with Black Adam ahead of its October release, aiming to establish the anti-hero title as a more important power player in the DCEU. Dwayne Johnson on the set of Black Adam.Warner Bros. Black Adam’s connection to the DCEU (obviously to fight his gang of child enemies) would make a lot more sense if it were a thriving, living place where massive crossovers were supplies of epic and shocking narratives to come. But just as Hollywood has settled into its current addiction to multiverses, the fate of the DCEU has been potentially jeopardized by its reliance on Ezra Miller’s The Flash, a universe-spanning saga that increasingly looks like DC’s answer to Spider-Man: No Way Home . Despite how it often feels like Warner Bros. might just not want to make comic book movies, the potential for director Andy Muschietti’s Flash to use the multiverse to connect the multitude of different Warner Bros. comic adaptations is tantalizing. Besides echoing the beats of DC’s Flashpoint comic event, using The Flash in this way could, one imagines, set the stage for a whole new direction for Warner Bros. superhero movies. What Warner Bros. needs Discovery doesn’t necessarily make movies like Marvel does Along with all that possibility though, The Flash has also been linked to allegations of child abuse and grooming against Miller, who reportedly appeared for the film’s additional photo shoot earlier this summer before being arrested in August. OFI Warner.’ The reasons why you don’t immediately want to slam the brakes on a tentpole movie years in the making – and a few months before its intended release – are pretty easy to understand up to a point. But with each different incident involving Miller since footage emerged showing him choking someone in an Icelandic bar in 2020, it’s looking more and more like Warner Bros. is willing to completely ignore the actor’s behavior in order to put The Flash first. Between Warner Bros. abandoning Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s nearly $90 million Batgirl , and Zaslav excitedly name-checking The Flash on investor calls, it’s clear that studio leadership believes the film he cannot succeed despite the damage. Miller can do to the brand. Ultimately, that may be true, but this kind of strategy-first-and-substance approach to franchise creation is exactly what got Warner Bros. into this juncture in the first place, and it could easily end up poisoning whatever future Warner Bros. Bros. Discovery has planned. In this late, late stage of the superhero movie game, where many of the innovations come and go, what Warner Bros. needs. Discovery doesn’t necessarily make movies the way Marvel does, but to really commit to a cohesive vision of DC projects, and then see it through to the end.
