Can We Go Back to Start (with the DCEU)?
On James Gunn's taking over and making changes some fans don't like...
Not sure if you’ve seen, but over the last week, the news broke that Henry Cavill — who had just announced his return to the DC Extended Universe after his cameo in Black Adam — was not going to be reprising the role of Superman in the future. Per the decision of new DC head honchos James Gunn and Peter Safran, the decision had been made to move towards a younger Superman/Clark Kent. For fans of Cavill, who’d just gotten him back into the red and blue tights, this felt like a disappointment and a bit of a betrayal by Warner Brothers and DC. For Cavill, the disappointment was obvious in his statement, but he landed on his feet rather well as he’s moved on to headline a possible Warhammer project at Amazon (the British actor being a big fan of the gaming series).
Of course, it was not just Cavill who was gone. Director Patty Jenkins had already announced that she was departing Wonder Woman 3 after her discussions with Gunn & Safran revealed creative differences. The expectation is that this will also likely mean the departure of Gal Gadot as the Amazonian princess if they are looking at scrapping the entirety of what was known as the DCEU. The poor financial return on Black Adam — Dwayne Johnson’s statements notwithstanding — also means that any future projects for that character are dead.
It makes sense in some way. Gunn and Safran are being brought in by new Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav to sort out the DC property line after a decade or so of chaos. From Man of Steel in 2013 through Black Adam this year, there’s been 12 movies that comprised the DC Extended Universe. They have ranged in quality from Wonder Woman and Aquaman to Suicide Squad and Justice League. They have seen refreshings and restarts and re-releasings of movies. They have course corrected several times and so far they are still lagging both financially as well as critically as the rival Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This has not been a new development either. The 1-2 punch of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad forced Warner Brothers to scrap their two-movie Justice League plans and release a single movie. Sadly it has always felt like WB/DC had no idea how to bring a movie universe featuring some of the biggest comic book characters together in a way that was cohesive, entertaining and profitable. The whys are as varied as the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline articles explaining it all, but the effect has been the same: a disjointed “cinematic universe” that has produced more disappointments than triumphs and has wasted some stellar casting choices, from Cavill’s Superman to Gadot’s Wonder Woman to Momoa’s Aquaman and Levi’s Shazam.
It’s understandable then that, with some fans still holding out hope that the DCEU as seen by director Zack Snyder (i.e. “the Snyderverse”) could come to fruition while other fans were hoping for something new and exciting and others had just plain given up on the whole thing, that Gunn and Safran have opted to blow it all up and start from scratch. Cavill, Gadot and Momoa are all household names now and bringing them back every time would get expensive every time. WB has already hit eject on projects like Batgirl, opting to take the tax break and deny people the chance to see it. And every other piece of news surrounding The Flash and its erstwhile star Ezra Miller is only making people more disgusted.
What else could they do but hit the eject button? While a small but devoted fanbase remains, Warner Brothers isn’t interested in making niche comic book movies. They want the big multi-billion dollar hits; ones that have fans coming back multiple times to theaters, that dominate conversation online and drive the merchandising and commercial arms, that make their streaming services into must-have apps. Put simply: they want the DCEU to be as big as the MCU.
And let’s face it: Gunn and Safran are not getting into this, with all the pitfalls, downfalls and possible failures, just to prop up the remains of what Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, Patty Jenkins, James Wan and others have crafted. That is a good way to earn all the criticism but none of the credit. Whether their new DC Universe succeeds or fails, it will be on them and the decisions they have made.
For my part, I hope they succeed. I want a great Superman movie. I want a great Justice League movie. I want to see movies that take characters who are hopeful and iconic and gives them the room to show that values of compassion, respect, caring and justice are still relevant in the 21st Century. Let’s see if they do it.