5 DCEU Movies We Want To See

Word came down recently that once Justice League hits theaters, its performance will help to guide [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Word came down recently that once Justice League hits theaters, its performance will help to guide the next wave of DC properties coming to the big screen.

There are already about a dozen DC characters or teams currently in development as feature films, from sequels to Suicide Squad and Man of Steel to Batman-family characters like Batgirl and Nightwing to more off-the-wall stuff like Booster Gold and Justice League Dark.

All of these ideas will, presumably, be coming into a version of the DC Universe that will have its roots in the existing films; even if Justice League underperforms and things slow down at Warner Bros., it would be difficult to imagine them rebooting the DCEU, particularly since it would involve recasting or invalidating the financial successes they've had with Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman and the promise shown by Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

With Batgirl coming and a general trend toward the less gritty and more idealistic seemingly on the horizon, we thought it was a good time to take a look at some of the properties DC has waiting in its wings and speculate about how they might fit into the larger context of the DC Extended Universe.

We're going to leave off the properties we already know to be in development and focus on the ones that haven't been discussed at length yet. After all, one of the great things about Marvel's and DC's superhero universes is that they have plenty of properties to mine for what could potentially be great films.

So...here goes.

MANHUNTER

The grounded realism of Manhunter would play nicely into a world where other heroes and even world governments find themselves mulling the implications of Superman's power.

In the comics, Kate Spencer was a district attorney who, tired of seeing super-powered killers get off on insanity pleas, stole a bunch of superhero tech from an evidence locker and became the vigilante Manhunter.

Taking to the streets to dispense deadly justice, Spencer delivered a brand of brutal justice that stood out in a lineup crowded with more traditional superhero books around the time of Infinite Crisis but the likes of which DC had arguably seen too many of during The New 52, leading to the current "hope and optimism" wave in DC Universe: Rebirth.

But for a company so fixated on building a universe with a lived-in feel, creating a burned out DA who wants to take on supervillains on her own? That feels like an easy win.

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JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Justice Society of America -- DC's first superhero team -- deserves a live-action adaptation, and with Geoff Johns in charge of the film side of DC, it's difficult to imagine a better guy to tackle it.

Johns, who got famous in part as a writer on JSA, also wrote the characters into an episode of Smallville he penned.

Wha'ts more, the idea of putting Wonder Woman in the first World War opens up the possibility that they could somehow write her into the JSA of World War II -- even if it means creating a storytelling issue by which they would have to make the world forget that the JSA ever existed.

Seeing precursors to The Flash and Green Lantern might be a difficult thing to sell to a casual moviegoing audience without introducing Earth-2 as a concept, but characters like Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Wildcat, and the like could be a compelling story even without those heavy hitters...especially if they had Wonder Woman at their side.

Justice Society of America - Worst Comic Book Movies

MIDNIGHTER

Midnighter is a lot more than "gay Batman," even if that would be the easiest way to sell the character to mainstream audiences.

Introduced as part of Jim Lee's WildStorm experiment, Midnighter was one of the members of StormWatch/The Authority, a team that was essentially a grim-and-gritty Britpop take on the Justice League.

Eventually, one of the most compelling characters became Midnighter, and his relationship with Apollo -- StormWatch's version of Superman -- has driven a lot of conversation over the years.

It was also a key component of the Midnighter comics from Steve Orlando, which were basically so perfect that they could easily be adapted into live action.

Midnighter Cover

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL

Before the JLI was best known as the "bwa-ha-ha" League, the Giffen/DeMatteis take on the Justice League of America was something that feels a little more at home in the world of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It was, literally, a version of the Justice League that came under the authority of the United Nations, worked only with government approval, and was significantly less powerful than the JLA -- even if part of the idea at some points was to keep tabs on the other superheroes almost as much as the villains of Earth.

In the wake of Amanda Waller's disastrous attempt to do something like this with the Suicide Squad and then the 1-2 punch of a group of powerful metahumans organizing their own team as an alien race invades Earth again, one can see the appeal of a "Justice League" that Waller or others like her believe they can control.

...And while it might be JLI-in-name-only, it would be an interesting opportunity to introduce some lesser-known League members who could ideally spin off into other movies if the JLI did well.

Think of the appeal of Blue Beetle, Doctor Light, Guy Gardner, and others who might join up with the cause!

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STARS AND STRIPE

This one would work better if there was already a JSA movie, so that it could feed off the long history of DC's heroes like the comic did, but a Jack Knight Starman movie could be incredible.

...Of course, it would be better as a TV show, so maybe use one of the other Starmen, just to establish the legacy and use some of the same high concepts?

At a minimum, this would be fun because they could use it to introduce Stargirl and STRIPE, characters created by Geoff Johns and seen in various media since.

Hell, we'd love to see a Stargirl movie, which could be DC's take on Spider-Man, with a teen heroine dealing with the real world, the superhero world...and in Courtney's case, a stepfather who only makes both a little bit harder.

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(Photo: DC Entertainment)

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