Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced plans to put together a new 10-year schedule for DC movies, but it will only succeed if they solve their long-standing PR and marketing problem to gain audience approval. Following Batgirl’s cancellation, CEO David Zaslav said WBD would be “resetting” its approach to DC movies, meaning the company will unveil its third new DCEU plan in five years.
Marvel Studios changed Hollywood’s approach to franchise filmmaking with the arrival of The Avengers in 2012, a year before Warner Bros. released Man of Steel, which became the basis of their original DCEU plan. The success of The Avengers and the associated box office boost of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and beyond has left most Hollywood studios hungry for their own long-term plan for interconnected universes based on famous intellectual properties .
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See also: Batgirl’s cancellation is a result of WB’s poor DCEU planning
Despite numerous attempts over the years to launch a similarly expansive universe featuring DC’s comic book characters, Warner Bros. plans to continually delay, only for the company to announce a change of plan. It’s certainly important for the DCEU to have a plan, like all franchises it’s trying to emulate, but it’s even more important to demonstrate confidence in that plan and sell it to audiences to avoid the numerous pitfalls that on the bumpy road of the DCEU occur this point.
WB has a long history of canceling or changing DC film schedules
The DCEU is notorious for delaying or canceling projects and restarting plans, but it’s hardly a new problem. During the 2000s, Warner Bros. canceled plans for several Superman films (including Kevin Smith’s Superman Lives and JJ Abrams’ Superman Flyby), a Batman vs. Superman film (Pre-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), and George Miller’s Mortal of the Justice League. Even the infamous Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film was intended to serve as DC’s answer to Iron Man and create an interconnected DC Universe. Man of Steel wasn’t marketed as the cornerstone of a universe, but in interviews, Zack Snyder described the DC universe as a “top-down affair” and said “you have to get Superman’s house in order” before you start introducing other characters (which Man of Steel teased with Easter eggs for things like Wayne Enterprises and Lexcorp).
Snyder’s post-Man of Steel plan, developed with Jim Lee and Geoff Johns, continued with the introduction of DC’s Trinity, bringing Batman and Wonder Woman into the Man of Steel direct sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and was to continue the focus on Superman through a five-film arc following Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the hero’s journey, with Superman’s birth, death, rebirth, resurrection and return. This arc would form the Justice League around Superman and open up opportunities for spin-offs like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and The Flash, as well as a number of canceled projects like Ben Affleck’s The Batman, Green Lantern Corps. and create a solo cyborg film for Ray Fisher.
This iteration of the DCEU didn’t even survive the theatrical release of Batman v Superman, in which Warner Bros. executives removed 30 minutes of runtime, including a major Steppenwolf test to create Justice League. Suicide Squad was extensively rewritten and remade to change the tone and replace much of Steven Price’s score with a pop music soundtrack. Of course, the Justice League is Warner Bros.’ most notorious victim. Interference, a major rewrite and on-set creative conflicts before Zack Snyder eventually left the project altogether, with Joss Whedon taking over in the 11th hour with another major rewrite and significant reshoots to change the story, lighten the tone and reduce teasing stop for almost every future film in Snyder’s plan.
See also: The very real popularity of the Snyderverse is WB’s biggest DCEU problem
Little is known about WB’s backup plan at the time, but new DC Films co-presidents Geoff Johns and John Berg said they “speeded up the story to get to hope and optimism a little quicker” and switched to Lex Justice League’s Luthor The Deathstroke scene replaced the set-up for Ben Affleck’s Batman movie schedule with a teaser of a possible sequel pitting the Justice League against the Injustice League or Legion of Doom, rather than DC’s Big Bad Darkseid, as teased in the Snyder Cut, AKA Zack Snyder’s Justice League following its release on HBO Max.
Johns and Berg were replaced by Walter Hamada shortly after the Justice League flopped. However, Hamada officially announced no plans for the future following the merger of Warner Bros. Discovery and the cancellation of Wonder Twins and Batgirl (two of the only films Hamada has even greenlit) and the announcement of a new 10-year plan , it has now emerged that Hamada was allegedly working towards a Crisis on Infinite Earths event film that was intended to serve as both a climax and a reset for the DCEU. Though Ben Affleck’s “Batman” and Henry Cavill’s “Superman” appear to be in need of a recast, and there are no apparent plans to use the characters in the near future, it’s not clear how far a crisis film could have gone or how it would have worked out anything but an “easy button” reboot plan with no characters firmly anchored enough to matter.
WB’s DC problem isn’t bad plans, it’s bad expectations
During this time, chatter surrounding the DCEU was dominated by the franchise’s failings and lack of future plans while the MCU thrived. Despite the perception of Marvel Studios as a well-oiled machine, the MCU’s famed 10-year roadmap hasn’t gone as smoothly as people think. There have been major conflicts with filmmakers like Edgar Wright on Ant-Man or Patty Jenkins on Thor: The Dark World, films like Inhumans have been canceled and a number of films have had their dates pushed back due to the joining of Spider- Man rearranged to the MCU. Additionally, changes in Marvel’s TV leadership resulted in popular MCU-adjacent shows like Agents of SHIELD or Daredevil and the rest of Netflix’s Marvel shows being further removed from the MCU canon and eventually canceled altogether. Despite these issues, the MCU didn’t draw the same criticism as the DCEU because the perception of “the plan” was set up when Kevin Feige announced MCU phases 2 and 3, which will appear in “Avengers: Infinity War Part I” and ” Avengers: Infinity War” culminated in Part II, which became Avengers: Endgame.
Ironically, the different treatment of the DCEU and MCU by Heath Ledger’s Joker can be summed up in The Dark Knight: “Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrible! If I tell the press tomorrow that something like a gangster is getting shot or a truckload of soldiers is being blown up, no one panics because it’s all ‘part of the plan’.” While Disney and the MCU feel a sense of trust in their Projects, filmmakers and their overall plan radiated, Warner Bros. and DC films radiated a lack of confidence, if not outright rejection, of their own filmmakers and their roster. WB already revealed course corrections, such as the Flash movie being Flashpoint, and suggested plans for an X-Men: Days of Future Past-style reboot before the Justice League even had its first major team, Walter Hamada’s plan for a Crisis on Infinite Earths film betrays the same lack of confidence.
WB can fix its DC plan problems with better PR and marketing
Granted, the DC Universe has needed a course correction for years, but it’s important to note that these issues were all first introduced by Warner Bros., who abandoned Zack Snyder’s plan after the divisive reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While some revisionist stories say that both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were planned disappointments, upon its release, Man of Steel was hailed as a financial success and an exciting start to the franchise. Even Batman v Superman, notorious for its box office decline and grossing less than $1 billion, is cited as the cause of many DCEU problems by WB, but Batman v Superman is still the second highest-grossing film in the DCEU. In fact, the top five films in the franchise—Aquaman, Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad, and Man of Steel—are all films that Snyder either directed himself or served as a key collaborator during development.
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Compared to Marvel Studios and the MCU, Iron Man was a relative hit (grossing nearly $100 million less than Man of Steel), but the rest of the MCU’s Phase 1 had subpar box office and lukewarm reviews. It wasn’t until after the $1 billion hit The Avengers that audiences began to see the franchise take off with far more lenient reviews and ever-increasing box office numbers. Going back to Snyder’s DC movies, after Zack Snyder’s Justice League came out, it had a similar effect to The Avengers, piqued audience interest in where the story was supposed to go next and improved perceptions of previous movies, with Batman vs. Superman even a (slight ) to increase his Rotten Tomatoes score. Whether sticking to Snyder’s original plan would have had the same success as Marvel has is hard to say, but with a big climax planned for the end of the five-movie arc, it would at least have given Zack Snyder a clean run at the ending to do so the franchise could be rolled back in 2020 or 2021.
Part of the problem is that Warner Bros. wanted to position the DCEU as a similar product to the MCU in hopes of documenting the MCU’s success with audiences. The problem with this approach is that it’s promoting a version of the films that the filmmakers they hired made, leading audiences to have false expectations and compounding divisive reactions. Joker also caused controversy and some backlash with its release, but Warner Bros. was honest with audiences about what to expect, even leaning on the fact that it received negative reviews during marketing and became one of DC’s highest-grossing Movies has always been. Instead of showing that kind of faith in their DCEU projects, the constant rumors of reboots and announcements that the franchise is going in new directions spread the studio’s lack of faith in its filmmakers, movies, and bigger plans, prompting the same doubts and lack of trust in his audience.
Whatever David Zaslav, Alan Horn and the rest of the team developing DC Films’ next 10-year plan come up with, the most important thing is to make sure the studio, filmmakers and audiences all agree that what kind of films they make. That means the studio’s marketing and PR strategy must approach the franchise from a position of strength, focusing on supporting their filmmakers and ensuring audience expectations match the films they actually make rather than instilling a sense of insecurity by attempting to sell “the new DCEU plan” by contrasting it with the old plan or comparing it to another franchise’s plan. After all, nobody panics when “it’s all part of the plan.”