The DC Extended Cinematic Universe

[Neon Ignition]

It would be great if the test version leaked one day, even if just the interesting bits. Poor Brendan Fraser, good job he's got that Whale movie on the way too

[prinnysquad]

The pisspoor strategy that made up the DCU was too piecemeal and erratic, with a total lack of joined-up thinking. Many of us said this years ago. I don’t know if it’s too little, too late now, though. I don’t know if general audiences can be fussed. Reboots after a decade of output? They’ve been very unlucky with their casting choices, which means getting rid of tosspots like Miller is unavoidable, but it’s a big ask this far down the line.

[Neon Ignition]

It's definitely salvageable but it'll depend on how they go about it as there's only so many chances, this will be its third era, itself a turn heel on the third era they had already planned.


I saw it broken down the other day that if nerd wars are put aside and broad audiences are considered instead for DC and the DCU together:

Man of Steel - Reasonably well thought of and successful
Batman vs Superman - Not well received, reasonably successful (more under what Warners wanted than a flop)
Suicide Squad - Reasonably well thought of and very successful (again, this is ignoring online fans)
Wonder Woman - Well thought of and successful
Justice League - Poorly thought of and unsuccessful
Aquaman - Well thought of and very successful
Shazam - Well thought of but only mildly successful
Birds of Prey - Reasonably well thought of and unsuccessful
Wonder Woman 1984 - Not well thought of, unsuccessful but pandemic affected too
The Suicide Squad - Well thought of and unsuccessful but pandemic affected too
Joker - Very well thought of an very successful
The Batman - Very well thought of and very successful

When their shelf life, merchandising etc is factored in there's only actually been one out and out failure which was Justice League. That was a huge one but even there some of the negativity was later mitigated by the much better received Snyder Cut that has killed the discourse on that film that had existed prior. Batman v Superman was a stumble but Warners expected too much and it did its job at launching several characters that have been successfully merchandised etc since.

Man of Steel and Suicide Squad exist in the same bubble. Fans online like to act like both were bad films and failures but both were successful and have enjoyed long running general audience sales and merchandising. To believe Man of Steel was a failure you have to believe Iron Man was a failure before getting to several other Marvel franchises like Ant Man.

Birds of Prey... that's an awkward one. From what has come out in the last few years it was definitely a flop but its word of mouth isn't that bad and it was apparently very successful when it hit streaming hence the now dropped plans to make series and spin-offs of it.

Wonder Woman 1984 would be the next go to, a difficult one as online chatter would have it be the scourge of the universe and an epic failure. Except it launched via streaming day and date as the theatrical run that itself opened in the heart of the pandemic and lockdowns across the world. It was a hit on streaming and its audience score sits around 75% so it's hard to imagine the online reputation is reflected with general audiences. A little bit like how Black Widow was hit by its timing close to Lockdown 3 era causing Johansson to kick off with Disney.

The non-DCU duo have been huge acclaimed and commercial hits too so the DC brand itself and characters are very much untarnished. That just leaves the DCU element where it really does seem that the 'failure' reputation is confined to just fanboy circles. It comes from constantly leaning it up against the MCU which has been enjoying the rewards of $1bn earning movies after already laying all its groundwork to that point, that and the same fans brushing over every entry that is less well received or underperforms in a similar manner.

The upcoming films could turn out to be duds but audiences will next be looking at Black Adam, a bigger Shazam sequel then the second Aquaman covering the next year so barring a surprise they would be going into the timeline reset phase on the back of those with Joker II and The Batman II alongside as wingmates which seems a good position to be in. They just need to re-develop some coherence, recast some roles and sort out Superman.

[prinnysquad]

Hmm. As posts go, it’s a good one. However, there are a few things I can’t agree with.

Suicide Squad got critically panned and is at the lower end of average, at best. I don’t know which yardstick it’s measured to be described as ‘reasonably well thought of’.

Forget the fanboy stuff for a moment. I don’t do fanboy. When I first got into the MCU, Ultron was about to be released. I hadn’t touched it before then. I caught the Avengers on BBC1 at Christmas and binged the back catalogue. The individual introduction stories, followed by an ensemble event, captured my imagination. It invests a particular type of audience, persuading them into throwing themselves into the wider storyline that slowly peeled away and upped the ante. A lot of the films work as individual rumbles, too, so they can be dipped in and out of, and are fit for a wide audience. I didn’t become a fan of the MCU because I’m a fanboy. I became a fan because of the above. I could talk to the kids at school about them. I appreciated the sense of a gathering storm.

DCU, regardless of the above list, was very scattergun and unfocused. Hardly any have reached the financial heights of the MCU. Why is that? Well, throwing ensembles together from the off is a risk, and it didn’t really pay off. Audiences weren’t invested in these versions of the characters. Secondly, the audience targeting is all over the place. No way can families see Joker, Suicide Squad and Batman. That limits the appeal for those paying for an increasingly expensive day out. Thirdly, there’s no build up to anything. There’s no plan. It’s no coincidence that the relative critical and audience failure of MCU’s phase four is because there’s no visible plan. Phase 4 comes across like a DCU run - just a load of films telling their own tales in their own way.

I want DCU to succeed. I’ve always said this. I want good, enjoyable films from both studios. Only morons feel otherwise, who are more obsessed with ‘winning’ than enjoying. The failure reputation of the DCU I’d say was more earned than not. Studio bosses and creative people aren’t fanboys - and they agree. That’s why they’ve developed a plan. Simply throwing characters at a schedule does not encourage audience investment or present strands of stakes, and that’s got sod all to do with fanboys.

[Dogg Thang]

Suicide Squad got critically panned and is at the lower end of average, at best. I don’t know which yardstick it’s measured to be described as ‘reasonably well thought of’.

He means reasonably well thought of by Neon Ignition.

But yeah, I would dispute some of this for the same reason.

[QualityChimp]

It's pretty depressing that Batgirl was axed because of tax reasons, but also that these Goliath studios see art as "content".

[Neon Ignition]

The reason I'd class Suicide Squad as reasonably well thought of is because Hollywood is because the film was a massive hit, you could say that was due to marketing but we're also making the argument here that a film based on DC characters audiences where unfamiliar with, coming off the back of the disappointment of BvS and with the reviews it got, showed that the marketability isn't so easily affected by online discourse on the brands. The film has also merchandised for years (even if Harley bears much the responsibility there) and its audience scoring has always been decent across the six years since its release. It's not to say the film is good, but the level of dislike in the film has always been overblown. Essentially, it's the classic old box office tale that critics and fanboys really don't matter when it comes to a films popularity. If it entertains masses enough it's a win for the studio and majority so the film was never actually a major negative in the DCU's development.

My personal biggest issue with it was always the representations of the characters themselves. Barring Harley, Flagg, Whaller and Deadshot they never came across as characters that made sense in terms of establishing a running DCU which was an issue Leto's Joker embodied from the ground up.

That's where the cohesion thing comes in which I think covers pretty much everything else everyone will say. The Suicide Squad and following it Peacemaker are both great but they absolutely make zero sense in a shared universe where Shazam co-exists. Black Adam is trying to tell us he's an anti-hero who kills, all whilst doing so in family friendly ways whilst a man with a tin hat blows mens nuts off graphically in another output. It's the opposite issue Marvel had where for the first three phases they were so OTT in feeling like production line offerings that we wanted some variation putting in, DC added variation but went so extreme that it basically severs the entire youth market by default from getting invested and means that for adults for every one thing you'll like there's four you won't.

From that angle the MCU mirroring plan makes sense. Reset the timeline and present a shared consistent version of the universe led by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Unlike Marvel, WB still has its stand alone offerings to explore those alt-audience incarnations so could have the best of both worlds.

[Brad]

I won't comment on any of the others but Wonder Woman 1984 is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, from any genre.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Bad DC movies are way worse than bad marvel films. When Marvel gets it wrong it's still watchable, DC is just embarrassing.

[Neon Ignition]

Dark World was vying with Birds of Prey... but then Eternals sent comas out into the world


To be fair though, that's side lining how few weakest hours Marvel has had in an immense run

One of the directors of Batgirl has released an image:



One of

[prinnysquad]

According to your list, Eternals is vying with Justice League or WW1984!

[Neon Ignition]

Justice League is bad but it's interesting and easy to also watch the decent Snyder Cut version instead. WW84... it's a problematic film but I definitely find the hatred for it to be hyperbolic given we live in a world of Dark Phoenix and the Fantastic Four reboot. Eternals commits the black hole sin of being a void, like... it simply exists. I imagine if a sequel happens it'll end up being a radically overhauled property

[prinnysquad]

You do realise that your DC list has zero duds?
SS is a film that sold a load of Harley Quinn dolls so must be popular, ergo, the critics were wrong.
Justice League is interesting and benefits from having a totally new cut.
WW84 criticisms are hyperbolic.
Everything else either did well at the box office, or would have it the pandemic wasn’t a thing, or was a critical success.

No wonder you don’t think the ‘t-shirt cannon’ strategy hasn’t been a failure!

[Cassius_Smoke]

Apparently Ezra has been seen in various places in the US carrying guns and wearing a bulletproof vest.
How hasn't the FBI caught him yet?

[Neon Ignition]

Suicide Squad made more money than any other DCU film until Aquaman, more money than The Batman, it made more than any phase one Marvel film outside of Avengers too all whilst not having the benefit of a Chinese release that would have risen it further. Repeat business was absolutely part of that success and coupled with its home media life is why a sequel was made, even if the sequel attempted to address the critical complaints. It's not that the film is amazing, just that its online rep as a disaster is a gross exaggeration that ignores why so much following material was able to be successfully spawned from it.

Justice League is definitely interesting, it's not good though so yep, that one was a dud and unquestionably a failure for Warner Bros. It 100% benefits from the new cut though, it's a much better film in that form and that cuts massive success on the service reflects that the damage was reversable.

As for WW84, to be honest, not on an individual basis but as an online on mass basis yes, I do think it's hyperbolic that it's called as bad as it is. It's definitely a flawed film for many obvious reasons but no, I don't believe it's as reviled by the public as it would be had and I do think that scorn would be cooled massively if it just had the word Marvel strapped to its front instead of DC.

Since before MoS even came out there's always been a very toxic anti-DCU air in circles online. In reality, if Warner Bros can iron out its consistency issues and broaden the appeal by cutting all the R-rated attempts out then its well within DC's reach of hitting MCU film by film levels of success as they're not actually that far off commercially if they actually got more stuff out the door.