So there have been so many headlines about the DCEU in the last few months, about rumors
and confirmations and directors and casting and all that.
And a lot of this has led to some confusion.
This is not me hating on DC, I’m just saying their plan for the next coming years has a
lot of moving parts to it, which can make it a little hard to follow sometimes.
So today I thought I’d try to break down what exactly is going on with the DC movies
going forward.
So there was an announcement recently that the main DC Extended Universe movies (or I
guess they’re not supposed to be called that?
Whatever Imma stick to it cuz its easy) are going to be less connected.
Now, they’re still going to be in the same universe as each other, but there just aren’t
going to be that many tie ins to other movies.
So don’t expect another Justice League quicktime file scene.
Think of it basically like Wonder Woman, a little BvS nod and that’s it, or Guardians
2 for the MCU.
In the world, but barely connected.
That sounds fantastic to me.
I do enjoy the MCU and how everything ties in, it makes for some fun timeline putting
together too if you have the time, but DC seems to have not been as good with it thus
far, so if they’re gonna tone that down, perfect.
Focus on the current movie, not the next five.
That was one of my favorite parts of Wonder Woman.
So as far as the movies that are coming up, there’s Justice League in just about two
months or so.
Looking forward to it, curious to see how much feels like a Whedon film and how much
feels like a Snyder film.
Then Aquaman in 2018 is one I’m super excited for, what with James Wan directing.
He’s super talented in many different genres, so count me in.
Shazam could be cool, with another horror director, though it’s coming up pretty soon
so I feel like they should get around to casting the main lead soon.
Wonder Woman 2 is next with Patty Jenkins returning to direct, spoilers for Wonder WOman
by the way if you somehow haven’t seen it, Steve Trevor potentially coming back, and
it might be set in the 1980s.
Wonder Woman is easily my favorite DCEU movie so far, so more of that, sure.
As far as bringing Chris Pine back, I don’t know how they’d do it, but with this being
a comic book universe with the god of war in it I’m sure they’ll find a way.
And I’d be very happy with that, because he was maybe my favorite part of the first
film, so yeah, please bring more.
Then there are Cyborg and Green Lantern Corps, which we still have no info on really.
Although it was rumored at one point that John Krasinski could be Green Lantern, and
as someone who has become obsessed with The Office over the past few months, a million
times yes.
John Krasinski in more stuff is always gonna be a good thing.
And if we can get Idris Elba as John Stewart, this would be perfect.
Funnily enough it’d be an Office reteaming.
Ok, then we have movies that DC’s has said are gonna happen at some point, like Batgirl
with Joss Whedon, Nightwing with the Lego Batman guy, The Batman with the Apes guy,
and Justice League 2, with no one at the moment.
Also Justice League Dark, which has been such a development mess up until this point that
I wouldn’t be surprised if they just cancel it.
Besides that last one, I’m actually really excited for all of these.
The Bat family is probably my favorite corner of the DC universe, so exploring it more with
some very creative people behind the camera, yeah, sign me up.
There are some potential movies that have been talked about, Black Adam, Deadshot, Lobo,
and of course that Man of Steel sequel that may or may not actually be happening.
These are all a little too up in the air to really comment on, but it’s worth mentioning
that there's been talk of them.
Ok, then there’s a whole category of upcoming DC films of Joker and Harley Quinn stuff.
Because everyone loved Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad, so now she’s gonna be in everything.
We’ve got Gotham City Sirens, with Harley, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman, and David Ayer directing
once again.
Now, personally, I didn’t love Harley Quinn like everyone else did, it was just a little
too cartoony to the point where it got annoying to me, I get that a lot of people loved it,
not really my thing.
So another full movie especially centered on here, I don’t know.
Hopefully Catwoman and Poison Ivy can balance it out if they’re well cast and play it
somewhat more straight for Harley to bounce off of.
Also, not a huge fan of Ayer coming back to this.
Then even more of her in a Joker and Harley team up movie.
Look, the scenes of Joker and Harley together in Suicide Squad, looking back I don’t know
if I’d call them great, but they were certainly one of the more entertaining parts of that
film.
Again though, maybe they’d just work better as side characters in a better ensemble piece.
There’s got to be some kind of other protagonist in that to sort of ground the movie, cuz otherwise
it’s just watching two crazy people be crazy for two hours.
And of course there’s Suicide Squad 2, which looking at the director will probably be better
than the first?
Here’s hoping.
Overall on this, I just don’t know if we need this much Harley Quinn.
For me it was kind of wearing thin in the first film.
And then, here’s when stuff really gets interesting for this universe.
And by interesting, I mean somewhat confusing but also somewhat promising.
So there are apparently going to be DC movies that are not connected to the DCEU.
And not like those movies I mentioned before where they’re technically in the same continuity
but aren’t gonna have as many connections, no, these movies are going to be completely
separate.
Different timeline.
Maybe they’ll crossover at some point, but basically think of this as an elseworld story.
The main one that’s been floated is a Joker movie set in the 1980s which tells the origin
of the Joker, with Martin Scorsese producing and Todd Phillips directing, and no Jared
Leto.
This is a little bit of a mixed bag for me, but I’m mostly excited.
I really like the idea of elseworld stories in general that have no impact on regular
continuity and are really just what-if kind of things.
It’s fascinating to me, so having a whole series of just unrelated DC movies is totally
fine by me.
The team behind it also seems pretty great, but the only thing that I don’t like is
I don’t want to see Joker’s origin.
That has always been one of my favorite parts of the character.
Quick backstory, when I was younger I got this giant book of DC characters which gives
info about them and whatnot, I don’t know, I thought it was awesome.
And I was super curious to see what it said about the Joker, but on his page under secret
identity it said unknown.
And that blew my mind, that even this super book that’s supposed to know everything
about this universe wouldn't know that.
Same with Ledger’s version, you never really know exactly how he came to be since he keeps
changing the story, and that’s great.
So to see a definitive version of how the Joker became this character, I don’t really
know.
If it’s well done though I’m up for pretty much anything.
In this same discussion there’s been talk of a Superman Red Son movie, potentially from
the director of Kong Skull Island?
Or maybe he just wanted to direct it?
Basically Red Son is a what if story where Superman landed in Soviet Russia and became
a Communist symbol instead of the Superman we know.
And it’s a pretty good read, so sure, I’d be happy to see that in movie form.
Whether or not it would confuse moviegoers, maybe, although Superman is so iconic that
I think they could get away with this one.
Now, you may have noticed, there’s a very large DC movie event that I’ve missed out
so far, and that’s cuz between all these sequels and alternate universes and all that,
we’re also getting a Flashpoint movie.
That’s right.
Just as this universe kind of starts to get some momentum, we’re gonna start messing
with it.
If you don’t know what Flashpoint is, the very basic plot line from what I’ve gathered
is that the Flash goes to an alternate timeline where a bunch of stuff is different, Bruce
Wayne was killed and his dad became a much meaner Batman, Bruce’s mom becomes the Joker,
Aquaman and Wonder Woman are at war, Superman is this skinny man, etc.
Basically it’s the DC universe kind of flipped on its head.
On one hand, like I mentioned, I do really enjoy kind of what if stories for characters
that I already know really well.
Like in the Flash TV show for example, they do some of that with different versions of
characters from different worlds, and it’s a lot of fun.
On the other hand, I do worry that maybe it’s a little soon to do this for this main somewhat
continuity keeping universe.
And this could apply kind of to that Joker movie I mentioned earlier.
I mean, we’re just getting the Justice League with a bunch of new characters and now you
already wanna give us a weird alternate universe storyline with them?
This kind of feels like Batman v Superman, where we just get to know this Superman, we
haven’t even met this new Batman yet, aaaand let’s just have them fight first thing,
because that’s the most iconic Batman Superman story.
And let’s throw in some other iconic storylines because we can, even though doing them this
early kind of ruins the impact of them.
If we’ve just gotten to know Aquaman properly, will it be cool to see this different version?
I don’t know.
And while I know these characters pretty well, casual movie goers I imagine are gonna be
quite confused.
It’d be like if the third X-Men movie was Days of Future Past.
I’m hoping they find a way to make it work, but for the first live action Flash movie
ever, doing Flashpoint right off the bat seems like a bit of a risk to me.
Alright, that was I think everything that’s happening with the DCEU.
Did I miss something?
I mean, probably.
Because this whole thing is confusing and a bit of a mess, but I have to say, I’m
honestly kind of excited to see what’s gonna happen next.
The normal in continuity stuff like Wonder Woman that is also not bogged down by tie-ins
to the main universe, that all sounds pretty great.
At least if they’re as good as Wonder Woman.
Those elseworld stories, I’m interested to say what happens there.
I don’t know about all the stuff with Flashpoint, like I said, I feel like it might be a little
too early.
Although if they’re doing it X-Men style to correct some of the problems with this
universe so far, maybe that could be cool.
And hey, we don’t exactly know when it’s coming out so by the time this rolls around,
maybe we’ll be really attached to these characters and it’ll work perfectly.
Or maybe they’ll finally hire a creative and clever director who stays on the project
who can handle this story.
Who knows.
So those were my thoughts on the DCEU.
What do you think of all of this?
Let me know all of your thoughts down below in the comments.
While you’re at it be sure to like this video, check out my Instagram and Twitter
@bhl_hudson, check out this podcast about movies and TV and whatnot I do every other
week with a friend of mine, it’s called The Poorly Planned Podcast (link down below),
and subscribe for more videos like the one you just watched.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.