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| The DCEU stands at a crossroads of sorts. |
Let's face it my fellow DCEU fans, last November's Justice League was a failure. There's no other way to say it, so let's stop beating around the bush and just put it out there already so we can all move on. Justice League was supposed to be the first film in the DCEU to shatter the billion dollar glass ceiling that DC and Warner Bros. have been eyeing for some time now. The film was supposed to be DC's answer to Marvel's Avengers and the culmination of decades of passionate wishing and hoping among fans of the world's most famous superhero team. Now, in the midst of the record obliterating beast of a superhero blockbuster known as Avengers: Infinity War, a film I've seen twice already and one that is without doubt a game changer for the genre, it's time for an unflinchingly honest reappraisal of the shortcomings of the DCEU and what they can try to do to get things back on track in the future.
Anyone who knows me knows that i've been a stalwart fan of the DCEU since Man of Steel kicked things off back in 2013. From the get go, I was a fan of Zack Snyder's grittier, grounded and more mythic approach, especially as a counteractive to Marvel's increasing over-reliance on jokes and more family oriented approach to the subject material. Despite the somewhat grim critical reception and the whiny backlash from diehard Superman traditionalists, Man of Steel did a fantastic job not only reestablishing Superman as DC's preeminent Superhero in a complex and modern world but also setting the stage for DC's other key characters to eventually show up in that world. The next chapter in the DCEU, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, may still be the most sharply divisive and hotly debated superhero film ever made, but it did, among other things, a fantastic job of introducing a new Batman whose look and combat abilities were closer to the comic book Batman than any previous incarnations, and that includes Michael Keaton, whose Batman also killed (quite gleefully i might add) in those films. The film also did what no other superhero film had the stones to do, introducing Wonder Woman after 75 years on the sidelines. I'll stop there with reasons why BvS did a great job of deepening DC's cinematic universe, but I'll finish by saying that despite the unfairly abysmal critical treatment of the film, it still managed to make 870 million worldwide, surpassing even Wonder Woman, the DCEU's one and only critical darling so far.
All this, especially the smashing success of Wonder Woman, seemed to all but guarantee the fact that Justice League would be, if not a billion dollar blockbuster, then something very close to that. Instead, the film limped out of the gate with a terribly disappointing opening weekend and then stumbled to the finish line having only grossed 657.9 million, over ten million less than MOS's worldwide haul. By now, fans have autopsied the film and most have come to the conclusion that what truly killed it was a greedy, overbearing studio that butchered Snyder's original vision by hurriedly rewriting and re-shooting crucial parts or cutting them out entirely in a desperately transparent attempt to make the film funnier and much lighter. Perhaps worst of all, they cut the whole thing down to under two hours so they could have more showings and therefore make more money. What could've and should've been an epic, superhero team up of mythic proportions became instead a watered down, rushed and joke laden shadow of itself and this is coming from someone who enjoyed the film, bought it the day it came out and has since watched it several more times. However, this does not change the fact that we were robbed of what could've been a spectacularly epic masterpiece of the genre, a fact which, during thoughtful moments, has the tendency to make my blood boil.
The sad fact is that no matter how fans try to dress it up, Justice League was a flat out failure, at least in the eyes of the general movie going public as well as the those who decide whether or not to green light a sequel. Now that we've established that, all that's left to do is pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and look to the future, even if at the moment it does seem somewhat dim. Still, we do have Aquaman to look forward to later this year and so far things are looking very positive on that front. Even better, is the positivity surrounding the Wonder Woman sequel, set to premiere next year, but not before Shazam! which will introduce the streetwise kid Billy Batson and his magic powered alter ego to the DCEU. These solo superhero films are the way to go for the DCEU for the time being. Justice League, despite its faults, got the team together, so now's the time to further develop the individual members, especially the new ones and bring in some lesser known heroes. One of the glaring faults of JL was that it didn't take the time to explore the backstories of its new members. Yes, we knew we'd be getting a solo Aquaman film and (hopefully) a solo Flash film, but giving some more exposure to their backgrounds (especially Cyborg) would've made them all the more familiar and sympathetic. If DC takes the time to really flesh out their more secondary heroes (as well as more deeply exploring the big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) then even casual viewers will feel as familiar with these versions of the characters as they now do with the chief Marvel characters and therefore care more about them.
Additionally, the DCEU needs to deliver both a straight sequel to Man of Steel and at least one great solo Batman film to properly showcase and develop Affleck's Bat. I think he's done a great job with the character even if they did lighten him up too much in some points during JL. He looks, fights and acts like the comic book Batman, now he just needs an equally worthy solo storyline, perhaps something like Hush or the Long Halloween, something epic and cinematic. Similarly, now that Superman's returned and is acting more like the optimistic and confident version of the character (which was Zack's plan all along), now's the time to give people a proper Superman solo film. Despite the uproar over mustache-gate, the return of Cavill's Superman was seen as a high point of the film by just about everyone. Most people like Cavill as Superman even if they weren't crazy about the previous films and the character's still as popular as ever, so give the man a worthy followup with a never before seen cinematic villain such as Metallo or Mongul or a lesser known villain like Conduit, Superman's high school bully turned super-villain who made a cameo in Man of Steel as the bully who pulled a young Clark from the truck.
Perhaps the biggest take away from Justice League is the danger of letting an overzealous studio that only sees dollar signs sabotage a director's film. Love him or hate him, Zack Snyder (with writers like David Goyer and Producers like Chris Nolan) is responsible for bringing DC's cinematic universe to life and kicking it off. He gave us Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot, gave us a Batman rendered incredibly faithfully from decades of comics, developed the story for Wonder Woman and brought together the first live action Justice League. That has to count for something. His distinctive visual style and tone, while not everyone's cup of tea, is decidedly different from anything Marvel has given us and that's what we need. Justice League is a result of what happens when you try to Marvelize a DC film by shoehorning in too many jokes and making everything too light and campy. Despite these hiccups, the best thing for the DCEU is to learn from these stumbles and mistakes and keep moving forward. Keep building and expanding the universe and developing the individual characters, keep polishing the things that work, (Wonder Woman, Cavill's Superman as the glue of the universe) and focus the efforts on each individual, upcoming film rather than trying to keep pace with Marvel's fine tuned movie making machine.
The bottom line is that Marvel got to it first (in a world where getting there first is pretty much everything) and they've also got a five year head start on the DCEU, so there's really no point in the DCEU trying to match them film for film. Instead, what they must do now is really fine tune their cinematic universe, build it up slowly with one quality film after another and therefore rebuild and regain the hope and trust of the DC fanbase. At this point, Marvel is King and their domain seems very unlikely to waver anytime soon, so DC needs to work more on satisfying the core fans with faithful adaptations of their favorite characters and stories and worry less about satisfying the general public. Rather than a reboot (even a soft reboot as has been suggested by a Flashpoint film), DC should simply learn from their stumbles and use them to produce the best quality films they can in the future. Things may seem a bit dark now, but there's still an undeniable spark of hope for the DCEU and if they're smart and let the best directors and creators do their work without the interference of greedy studio execs, they may just be able to rekindle that spark into a blazing fire.
