We've watched the Justice League come together, but that's only the beginning of Warner Bros.'
plans for DC domination. What do fans have to look forward to over the next half decade
or so? Let's take a look at the upcoming DC movies that are going to blow everyone away.
2017's Wonder Woman was the first DCEU effort to be widely embraced by fans and critics
alike, and its sequel, the succinctly titled Wonder Woman 1984, will see Diana taking on
new challenges during the Era of Yuppies. Originally scheduled for a November 2019 release,
the flick was pushed back to late summer 2020, and then again to October.
In addition to Gal Gadot reprising her role, the sequel has cast Kristen Wiig as frequent
Wonder Woman nemesis Cheetah and Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord, who in the comics is a villainous
telepath.
Interestingly, Chris Pine is also back as Steve Trevor, despite his character meeting
his end in the first film.
Patty Jenkins has also returned to the director's chair, working from a screenplay she co-wrote
with comics legend Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham. The story will reportedly center around magical
artifacts, one of which curses Wiig's character and causes her transformation into Cheetah,
and one of which brings Trevor back to life.
See how it all goes down when the movie takes flight on October 2, 2020.
"You know what? I'm ready to go."
Despite introducing Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, 2016's Suicide Squad was considered
to be one of the DCEU's more disappointing early efforts, with a wildly inconsistent
tone, a final battle bogged down by poor CGI, and a poorly-received turn by Jared Leto as
the Joker. But it did pretty well at the box office, and during writer-director James Gunn's
temporary firing from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, DC struck while the
iron was hot, securing him to mastermind a soft reboot of the property, this time titled
The Suicide Squad.
"Subtle."
It's not a total redo, though. Gunn has retained key players from the first film, such as Robbie
as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, and built
his own stellar cast of new characters around them.
They include David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Steve Agee as King Shark, Daniela Melchior
as Ratcatcher, a.k.a. "Ratcatcher 2," John Cena as Peacemaker, Idris Elba as Bloodsport,
and Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson as Blackguard.
Principal photography has already wrapped on the flick, and although it was a tough
shoot for Gunn, who lost his father near the beginning, and his beloved dog near the end,
the filmmaker still took to social media to call the experience "the most fulfilling time
[he's] ever had making a movie."
Plot details have been kept firmly under wraps, but this is a James Gunn joint; we're pretty
sure it's going to be a good time. Join in on the fun when the film hits theaters on
August 6, 2021.
Fans have been waiting a long, long time to get a glimpse of Robert Pattinson in action
as the Dark Knight in The Batman, and at DC's virtual FanDome convention in August 2020,
they finally got their wish. Writer-director Matt Reeves, who had previously promised that
his film would be a dark, noir-ish work focusing on the early days of Bats' crime-fighting
career, dropped a dark, brooding trailer that felt remarkably satisfying, considering that
only about a quarter of the film had been shot when it was pieced together.
The spot focused heavily on Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon as he works on a case involving
a mysterious party with a seeming grudge against the Caped Crusader. This is Paul Dano's Riddler,
of whom we also got a brief glimpse. There's also Zoë Kravitz's Catwoman, who appears
to have her own clandestine agenda. Most significantly, we were treated to the sight of Pattinson's
Bruce Wayne in full costume, both working with Gordon and beating the ever-loving crap
out of a thug on a dark Gotham street.
"I'm vengeance."
Pattinson looks every bit as intense and batty as we'd hoped, and a final shot of Wayne removing
his mask to reveal his haunted, makeup-smudged eyes has us more convinced than ever that
Reeves hired the right actor. Of course, there's room for more than one Batman in the DC Universe,
but Bat-fans have to be pleased with how The Batman is shaping up ahead of its October
1, 2021 release date.
2017's Justice League should have been one of the biggest films of all time, but instead,
it became the lowest-grossing entry in the DC Extended Universe to date, and most fans
place the blame squarely on one man: Avengers director Joss Whedon, who took over and completely
overhauled the project when original writer-director Zack Snyder was forced to depart midway through
production due to a family tragedy.
Fans lobbied for the release of Snyder's cut of the film for years, and next year, they'll
get it. That's when HBO Max will debut Zack Snyder's Justice League, which viewers will
have the option to watch either as a four-part miniseries or as a four-hour feature, sometime
in 2021.
Snyder has already teased much of the goodness to come: a more fully-formed arc for Superman,
the restoration of Cyborg as the movie's narrative heart, a new look for villain Steppenwolf,
the appearance of his boss Darkseid, and a totally revamped third act, to name a few
of those goodies. Most importantly, though, Snyder has sworn that his version of Justice
League will contain not a single frame shot by Whedon, who by some accounts re-shot up
to 90% of the movie after he took over.
"It's not like a competition, y'know? Well, it is a competition, but it’s not like a
macho, measuring thing."
The teaser trailer that Snyder dropped at FanDome, scored to the strains of Leonard
Cohen's "Hallelujah," has us pretty much convinced that Zack Snyder's Justice League will be
the version of the movie that fans deserve, and, if it's as rapturously received as we
think it will be, Justice League 2 could even be in the cards.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been keen to play Shazam nemesis and anti-hero Black Adam
on the big screen for years, but ever since a solo flick featuring the character was officially
confirmed way back in January 2017, details have been rather slight. That all changed
at DC FanDome, where Mr. The Rock presented some short video clips featuring concept art
for the film, revealing that the movie will stick close to the character's comic origins,
and that we can expect some absolutely scintillating characters from DC Comics to show up.
Arguably the biggest revelation from the panel is that the Black Adam movie will introduce
the Justice Society to the DCEU, featuring the team as a band of heroes who are seemingly
intent on helping Adam achieve his as-yet undefined goals. But they reportedly fail
to realize that the insanely powerful anti-hero might not want their help, or consider what
he might do to them if they get in his way.
Appearing in the film will be iconic DC characters Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher,
the last of whom will be played by Noah Centineo, perhaps known for his work in the Netflix
romantic comedy To All the Boys I've Loved Before.
After years of waiting, we've never been closer to the Black Adam movie becoming a reality.
We'll keep you posted on all the details in the leadup to the movie's release on December
22, 2021.
Having gained plenty of superhero-ing experience during the events of his 2019 solo vehicle,
young Billy Batson still has a long way to go until he's ready to take on Black Adam
in the upcoming sequel, titled Shazam: Fury of the Gods.
Of course, he may have a little help; you'll recall that at the conclusion of Shazam!,
Batson was able to defeat Doctor Sivana by sharing his powers with his foster family,
transforming them into Shazam-like heroes who will presumably have a significant role
to play in the sequel.
The movie's mid-credits stinger revealed that Sivana, while currently imprisoned, is still
a threat, especially after he teams up with that scene's cute little talking caterpillar,
Mister Mind, a...well, a space worm from Venus who is a heck of a lot more dangerous than
that descriptor might make him sound.
Batson will need all the help he can get with Black Adam in the picture, although there's
always the possibility that the antihero will lean toward his "hero" side by the end of
the movie, and end up assisting Batson and family against the forces of evil.
Shazam! was a heck of a lot of fun, but we all know that superhero sequels tend to go
darker. It stands to reason, then, that young Billy is going to have some growing up to
do when the sequel lands on November 4, 2022.
The long-awaited solo film for the Flash has been cooking since long before the character
made his first cameo appearance in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The list of writers and directors to have signed onto and then departed the project
is extensive, but since the film has been taken over by director Andy Muschietti, it
seems to have finally found itself on solid ground.
Not only that, it's now shaping up to be nothing less than the key to how Warner Bros. and
DC Entertainment will approach their entire movie universe going forward.
As we've long suspected, the flick will reportedly take its narrative cues from the iconic "Flashpoint"
storyline, and as Miller's Scarlet Speedster skips across different realities, he'll potentially
accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of uniting every DC property into one complex
multiverse.
Miller's Barry Allen already met up with Grant Gustin's Arrowverse version of the character
in the CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event, an unprecedented collision between the movie
and TV properties.
"What the hell is this?"
"I'm asking myself the same question…literally."
According to recent casting developments The Flash solo movie will reportedly get even
crazier with the crossovers: not only did Ben Affleck unexpectedly agree to reprise
his role as the Bruce Wayne that Miller's Flash knows and admires, but Michael Keaton
will also return as the version of the Dark Knight we saw in 1989's Batman and 1992's
Batman Returns.
"I'm Batman."
Somehow, we get the feeling that there will be many, many more appearances by different
live-action versions of DC characters when it arrives on June 3, 2022. Screenwriter Christina
Hodson, who previously penned the script for Birds of Prey, all but confirmed as much at
FanDome, saying,
"The cinematic multiverse is gonna be born out of this movie. It's born out of Barry's
story."
"Introducing the flash and beyond batman panels. This movie, by opening that door that Flashpoint
did in the comics, all of these stories and characters can start to collide."
After Justice League was met with a deflated critical and commercial response, any plans
for a sequel were immediately shuffled off to the back burner, but that doesn't mean
that the powers that be won't revisit the possibility for a sequel if Zack Snyder's
Justice League cut totally blows people away.
If it does, it just so happens that the filmmaker has confirmed he originally had a five-film
arc in mind, which included Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice
League, and two sequels. If the retooled Justice League does well, it's possible that some
of those plans could be revisited in the future.
Snyder has teased that as he originally envisioned, Justice League 2 would have seen our heroes
taking the fight to Darkseid on the planet Apokolips, only to suffer a crushing loss.
The third film would have seen the team returning to an Earth taken over by Darkseid for their
final stand, which would have involved the Flash creating a new timeline.
"Well that was fun, while it didn't last."
It's too soon to know just how Zack Snyder's Justice League will be received, or how it
will affect the road map for the DC Extended Universe as a whole moving forward, but it's
safe to say that even now, a Justice League sequel looks a heck of a lot more likely than
it did even a year ago. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.
Justice League Dark, a potential feature film based on the team that includes such horror-themed
characters as John Constantine, Zatanna, and Deadman, has been in various stages of development
for an unreasonably long time.
The great Guillermo del Toro was attached to write and direct as long ago as 2012, with
the project being passed off to Edge of Tomorrow’s Doug Liman in 2016; after nearly a decade
of no real movement on the film, fans were ready to give up. That is, until J.J. Abrams
and his Bad Robot production company stepped in to save the day.
In January 2020, it was announced that Bad Robot will begin developing both feature film
and television projects based on the property.
Warner Bros. bringing on its hired guns to rescue Justice League Dark is a pretty strong
indication that the studio was never willing to let it die on the vine, but at this point,
we're still not sure what shape it'll take, and how long it'll take to get from the writers'
room to in front of our faces. Also unknown: what team members will be involved, and whether
or not the movie and/or TV series will tie in with the larger DCEU.
The idea of a feature film based on the near-unstoppable alien bounty hunter Lobo has been kicking
around even before the DCEU's inception, with a Guy Ritchie-directed version discussed as
far back as 2009, but later scrapped.
The project was revived as part of the DCEU slate in 2016, with San Andreas and Rampage
director Brad Peyton set to helm from a script by Jason Fuchs, who contributed to the screenplay
for Wonder Woman and has also been tapped to pen the Minecraft video game adaptation.
It was rumored in early 2018 that none other than Michael Bay was being eyed to take the
reins, and Fuchs was still reported to be working on the script.
As is becoming a theme with the DCEU, however, the television side of things has threatened
to intervene. The second season of the Syfy series Krypton features Irish actor Emmett
J. Scanlan taking on the role of Lobo, leading some observers to speculate that the character's
feature film prospects had dimmed, but there's been no official word, so a starring vehicle
for the ultra-violent baddie could still be in the cards. Once again, the name of the
game is "wait and see," but if there's one thing we know about Lobo, it's that he never
quits.
"We thought we did deliver…"
DC nabbed an Oscar winning legend for their planned Blackhawk film. Steven Spielberg,
who has taken home three Academy Awards over his expansive career, will produce and likely
direct a film based on Blackhawk, the enigmatic leader of an international squadron of heroic
pilots who take on the Nazis during World War II. The Blackhawk character debuted in
1941's Military Comics No. 1 and was originally published by Quality Comics before DC acquired
it in 1956.
The character headlined a number of best-selling comics in the 1940s. His World War II background
makes him a great fit for Spielberg, who earned an Oscar and a number of other accolades for
his work directing the World War II-based drama Saving Private Ryan. He's reportedly
bringing on Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Jurassic Park writer David Koepp
to pen the script.
The future of the DCEU's version of the Man of Steel may be a bit up in the air, but one
project that Warner Bros. is reportedly high on is a starring cinematic vehicle for his
cousin Kara, a.k.a. Supergirl. The character is enjoying a high profile thanks to the success
of her TV series set within the CW's Arrowverse, and with the MCU's Captain Marvel having arrived
in 2019, the time seems right for the DCEU to introduce its own awesomely-powered female
lead.
Little is known about the in-development project other than its screenwriter: Oren Uziel, who
penned 22 Jump Street as well as The Cloverfield Paradox. The rumor mill has suggested that
the project could be set in the '70s, in an alternate timeline which sees Kara arrive
to Earth before her cousin, in order to set the film version of the character apart from
her TV incarnation. Uziel has been at work on the script since August 2018, so more details
are sure to surface sooner rather than later.
"What's the hurry?"
"Oh, uh, I'm with her."
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