The DCEU is a cinematic universe in flux at the moment, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the DC powers that be.
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At one point the universe was being modeled after Marvel Studios’ successful enterprise, where each film forms a puzzle piece of an ever-expanding whole. After several films failed to live up to expectations though, it started to seem like DC is grasping at straws, announcing on film after another in hopes one will stick.
That isn’t the case though according to DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, though he admits that it at times certainly seems that way. Johns was asked about the criticism they’ve received for having no strategy, and if that is in fact true.
“Some of the stuff is true, some of it isn’t true,” Johns told Vulture. “When we talk about things or we’re making deals for people to develop scripts or whatever, sometimes, things leak; sometimes, things are misreported, and it’s frustrating. Because we do wanna go out there and talk about what our strategy is, and this stuff just muddies the water. There’s a lot of internal conversations going on about, How do we help kind of clean that up a bit?”
Things like the back and forth of whether films like The Batman, Gotham City Sirens, and the Harley Joker film exist in the same universe as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Man of Steel seem to perpetuate that vibe of confusion, but DC has recently cleared that up as well. Johns spoke of an “unnamed side label of occasional movies that are completely separate from everything else” that these could fall under, and revealed a title for that will be announced sooner than later.
It would follow comics in that regard, who have longer running storylines and events in their books while also taking breaks from those to tell smaller self-contained stories. There’s no reason the DCEU can’t follow suit, and fans would eat it up if done correctly.
The next film on the slate is Justice League, which has its own issues. Stil, fans are anticipating it finally hitting the big screen later this year.
Justice League lands in theaters on November 17th.
