‘Justice League’ To Premiere On HBO In July

DC Comics' Justice League will make its HBO debut July 7, the premium channel revealed in an updated release schedule.

In addition to Justice League, HBO will soon bring Warner Bros.-produced Blade Runner 2049 and IT to the small screen, as well as Fox productions Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Mountain Between Us, Battle of the Sexes, Murder on the Orient Express, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Both HBO and Warner Bros., who owns DC Entertainment, are owned by Time Warner.

Justice League helped the conglomerate beat its Q4 expectations despite the superhero crossover bringing in the lowest box office totals for any DC Extended Universe film. Its $657 million put Justice League in fifth place, behind Man of Steel ($668m), Suicide Squad ($746m), Wonder Woman ($821m) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($873m).

The critically mauled Zack Snyder-directed blockbuster earned just a 40% approval from critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and its relative poor performance reportedly resulted in a dramatic shake up at Warner Bros. over its DC Comics-inspired cinematic universe.

As first reported by Variety, Warner Bros. restructured its DC Films operation in light of the disappointing returns coughed up by Justice League, which the studio intended to be its answer to Disney-Marvel's The Avengers.

Former DC Films co-head Jon Berg was shifted to a new role as production partner for Roy Lee (IT, The LEGO Movie), while Walter Hamada was bumped up to DC Films' president of production.

Warner Bros. is continuing on with their DC Comics universe and will next release Aquaman, from The Conjuring director James Wan, in December.

The studio follow the aquatic superhero's solo movie with April's Shazam!, from Annabelle: Creation director David Sandberg, and November 2019's Wonder Woman 2, under returning director Patty Jenkins.

Also in the works is The Batman from War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves, which has yet to be dated. Justice League star Ben Affleck is expected to reprise his role as the Dark Knight and the film is rumored to see the involvement of famed Bat-foe the Penguin.

Birds of Prey, teaming Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and a yet-to-be-cast Batgirl, recently recruited fresh director Cathy Yan, and The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay is developing a Nightwing solo movie for the studio.

Also planned is a Todd Phillips-helmed Joker origin movie under producer Martin Scorsese, which is said to be the first of a side label separated from the shared DCEU.

Justice League, which was released to Blu-ray in March, is the third-best selling Blu-ray disc of 2018.