How the DC movie universe can continue...

Hey Everyone

After watching a video on the DCEU, I had a conversation with some co-workers about the state of the DCEU. And as such, we went back and forth on things WB got right and things they got wrong and ultimately how they fail at bringing the comic book movies to the screen compared to Marvel Studios. Now, this by no means is not a DC vs Marvel thread nor a DCEU rant thread. I wanted to pose a question to you. Should WB continue the DCEU even after the state it's currently in? Or should they go back to the drawing board and reboot DC movies after a couple of years? What's your take on this?

With the upcoming Flashpoint movie, they could start fresh with a soft reboot of DCEU, and hopefully with future movies if the higher-ups doesn't interfere with the directors and edit the hell out of the films. DCEU should be okay.
B v S, Suicide Squad, and JL did poorly because there were too many hands in the cookie jar. Wonder Woman was spared because they were told to back the F off.

for me there is no hard or fast rule as to how WB should decide what to do with DCFU (that's the new acronym by the way). Ideally it should have been what Marvel did, introduce different characters and only then that they establish their connections. But since its already there and from what I have gathered is that Flashpoint is the starting movie for the Flash. Its kinda odd but given the state of DCFU a soft reboot is needed.

in addition to that, DCFU is now establishing movies that are stand-alone. The Joker movie is not the Joker in Suicide Squad. Shazam is not related too, Thus Black Adam that will show up on suicide squad 2 is not connected to the upcoming movie Shazam. The Batman too, so is Batgirl, sigh. I for one can comprehend whats happening but for the general audience who is not DC comics savvy might get confused.

DC's biggest problem, they tried to rush to keep up with Marvel. Not to mention, they did a poor job with Superman in y opinion. I didn't like Henry as Superman plus I didn't like how they try to write Superman like he is Batman. Far as batman vs Superman, thought they actually did a good job with Batman but once again failed with Superman and Lex was basically Riddler. Showing the psychological side of Batman something we didn't see in a move before and not to mention the training he did to fight Superman made him look really awesome. Superman was a a broody type who didn't want to be Superman and wasn't the beacon of hope. DC biggest problem, they trying to go darker then Marvel try to aim more towards adult while sacrificing the characters at the same tie. Not every character is like Batman.

Without seeing Justice League, Batman vs Superman, and the Man of Steel turn me away from wanting to see Justice League. With Marvel, they try to keep the characters true to who they are and not to mention got actors who actually did a good job and the stories was much better.

Actually, no it is not.

The Film Universe was mentioned in passing when someone from WB stated that the term DCEU was a made up term by some reporter and that wasn't what WB called it.

The reason people picked up on the term DCFU was for the obvious of what FU also stands for, which was the same reason why people clung to the STD acronym for Star Trek Discovery. They view it as a perfect representation of what WB has made.

Most people still use the DCEU because its what they know and WB has never said what they call it. I prefer what was used originally, DCCU.



Here's Campea's view on the subject.

While I do saw where flaws where in some of the DCEU movies I overall liked them all so far and will continue to follow them and build my Steelbook-Bluray collection from them. I do not care much for unconnected movies like this Joker movie I heard about; actually it being connected would have been the only reason for me to care about a Joker standalone film.

Just restart the whole thing next decade, completely from scratch. Do all the origin films first, then do the big group movies like JL. The main mistake that the DCEU made was trying to rush and catch up with marvel instead of taking their time and doing the origin movies first. If Aquaman is received well by critics, it'll only prove the point that they should have done all of that before Justice League.


And I love DCUO so keep Warner Bros hands out of the theatrical cut. They cut so much out of the films it ruins them. If Marvel can get away with 2 and a half hour films then so can DC, doesn't need to be just 2 hours long.

I always change my opinion about this every few months. Sometimes I think a complete reboot would be better, sometimes I think a soft reboot will be better. Both have their upsides and downsides, so perhaps a better solution would be to do a soft reboot now and end the current run in 2020/2022 and then reboot the whole thing.

Whatever happens, there are things that must be improved. First is characters, there's no going around this issue, they have to get the characters right, their motivations have to reflect their character and those two things should be the driving forces behind the plots. Second issue is that their universe feels disjointed which is an issue for the new SW movies as well, I think the WB execs should have a little more hands off approach and let the creative people do their job to come up with good individual stories (per movie) as well as a few overarching stories that are going to connect the movies, to make the universe a little bit more compact. I realize DCEU did try to bridge the individual movies together and they did a fairly decent job, but imo it could have been handled better. This requires strong vision and knowing their audience.

If "New Gods" comes to fruition and is a GOOD movie then THAT could be the catalyst we need..

Do your thing, Ms. Ava!!

MOS had a potential tie-in with Captain Ferris (Hal Jordan's love interest)...

We've already had Steppenwolf invade Earth...

There are (IMO) already enough potential tie-ins out there without having to reboot the whole thing.

CONTINUE with the supposed GL Movie in 2020...and include John Stewart as well. If "Black Panther" showed us ANYTHING it's that if a Superhero of Color is done right it will SELL..

If they can't make John Stewart (Architect and MARINE) work then there is simply no hope for DC.



And PLEASE don't exclude Hal Jordan.

they should have made theyr justice league movie directly.
the DC tv universe was allready establishing all characters.
hwo wants to hear batmans origin story again and again?
noone needs to. go into the action dierctly without all that!
zack snyder did a realy awesome job with the watchman,
however: the man of steel was a disaster from begin with.
it was just plain bad. and then came batman V superman:
a total face palm to all who go into cinema for good story.
similar to the last jedi: enjoyable action, nothing for brains.

sure, marvel did the same with spidey:
first the trilogy with peter parkers origin.
then a good reboot the stuff from scratch.
now, yet another reboot and i'm like *sigh*

All valid points and I agree, I think the only option now is a soft reboot. However, before that, the very first thing that needs to happen is to fix some of the behind the scenes things that effect the DCEU overall.

First, a proper person or team must be chosen to head all DC films. I know Walter Hamada was given the position recently but as a producer, he's been mostly involved in comedy and horror movies whereas compared to Kevin Feige who has produced nothing but comic book movies from Blade, X-men, Spiderman, Hulk, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, The Punisher, and all the MCU films. So I don't think Hamada is the right choice. I believe what is needed is someone who has similar experience with working on comic book films. Heck, I'd even go as so far to suggest have a committee/team consisting of Bruce Timm, Greg Weisman, and Geoff Johns as the head of DC films and the WB execs could handle the financial side of things. Second, the WB execs should not have access to meddle with any DC films (no forced dumb editing of the film and allowing the chosen directors freedom to helm their projects)

Some comic book youtubers like Comicstorian and Comicsexplained got together to discuss this very topic

Hiring Zack Snyder was honestly the biggest mistake.

Life Bern, life.

I get that man, anyway, glad to see your name back around here. Hope you are well

They need to minimize the shared universe aspect and just concentrate on (1) getting the characters right, and (2)making movies that people (not just comic fans) want to see. If they can get those two things down pat, the shared universe can pull itself together.

About the Acronym DCFU

point taken.

but then what "FU" means seems so appropriate now.


i'll make another post about the history on how WB went from Dark Knight Trilogy success in into the current DCFU state of DCEU.

Those aren't fair comparisons for a variety of reasons.

The easy ones to point out are as follows:

*The dark knight triology is a standalone batman story. It does not interact with any films in and of itself.
*You have one main person you're representing (i.e batman). Even if other things interact with the main person
at the end of the day that main person is the sole focus.
*The main person at the end of the day was a solid reflection of what they were in the comics and while deviations were
made nothing was ever considered "against the character" (as was done with Supes killing Zod).

Those are just the easy ones to point out.. there's more sure... but again I don't think that's a fair comparison (and I actually only found one of them repeatable for enjoyment).

nope. I'm not comparing anything. I talking more of like "from this point to this point".... take a hint with the word "history"..... also , obviously its was not going to be included in the DCEU

funny I was just finished with the history..... sorry this was rushed... hope it makes sense

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1. Lets Start with Green lantern. Despite its earnings, Its not considered to be a commercial success by WB standards. It was Geoff Johns who wrote the movie but editing mess made the movie looks convoluted. Imagine if it became a success, Johns would the Kevin Fiege of DCEU/DCFU. For all other details about the GL movie It’s another story on its own so lets continue.

2. When Christopher Nolan became successful with the Dark Knight Trilogy they decided to go Dark….. and gritty. WB execs want Nolan to take the helm but instead then recommended Zack Snyder. The later who filmed what is supposed to be a movie that is unfilmable that is the Watchmen. They decided if that “Dark” would work with Superman. Man of Steel earned but IMHO, the same with other fans, that if they made the movie “Bright” they would have earned more.

3. From what I have gathered then, WB style of script writing is that writers would have to create their own stories and the best one would be selected. This has happened to Wonder woman and imagine that the roles for Circe and Aries was offered to Eva Green and Sean Bean respectably and they both rejected it because they don’t like the script. Same with Nicole Kidman who was offered for the role of Hyppolita. As we all know Circe is not part of the movie so obviously there were script changes.

This is in contrast to Marvel’s writing style they produce different version or iterations in case that there changes that goes along the way like spider-man in Civil War. And in the upcoming Infinity war in which they are now have included the Silver Surfer,

4. Guardians of the Galaxy came into the picture, pun intended. They have a formula. Funny, catchy soundtrack, and not afraid to try something new. Like in this case they made Star-Lord from a serious bloke into spacefaring nutcase. It worked. So Thor: Ragnarok adopted the formula. From the dark film of Thor: The Dark world, again pun intended, they made it funny also.

For the those who had watched Justice League would even notice the brighter colors and some part of the music of the 80’s theme song of Superman. An improvement.


5. Speaking of Justice league. From the test screens and early reviews they say the movie was great good until a WB executive ordered for that 2 hour limit what I would compare to an Axe chopping a head. Sigh.


Dark and gritty can work but only to some superheroes like Batman, Deadman, Justice League Dark, etc. But for the main line of Superheroes it should not be just bright in colors but also in expressing “hope”. Making Superman an emo kid and mope around after the bomb explosion is akin to Dr. Manhattan’s sulking on planet Mars. (on the side note I think there are more similarities with Watchmen and BvS).

So , for me, in order for WB to save DC they need to apply what Richard Donner did in the first 2 Superman movies. Make it Bright, Make it funny, and have a good soundtrack. Yes! You read me…. It is DC’s original formula that what Marvel is using. Watchmen has a good 80’s soundtrack and so does Guardians of the Galaxy.

Also, you can’t rush art.