The thing that all the Batman fans dreaded for a while is happening now! DC has not been in clear waters ever since Justice League failed. The movie came out after a big mess behind the scenes, and with WB having spent a lot on the movie, it only managed to bring in $656 Million failing to even break a profit for WB. This is what put the future of the DCEU in jeopardy as it was the 4th failure out of the 5 times that WB has attempted movies in the shared Universe. Still, there is hope as WB has a lot of movies such as The Batman under development, and the likes of Wonder Woman 2 have already begun production.
The DCEU is undoubtedly in peril. The story of Justice League was in shambles. The series arc seems bleak. Both suicide squad and BvS were critical failures while Wonder Woman was largely loathed by the fandom barring all of the SJW (Social Justice Warriors) marketing.
We have seen failures come out of the WB doors one after another ever since Christopher Nolan took his leave from the superhero genre. It is not clear what the studio is planning. One thing that hardcore DC fans had to console themselves with was the fact that even though the DCEU has been doing a lot of things wrong they did The Batman right.
The warehouse sequence in BvS was arguably the most accurate Batman battle scene ever choreographed on set. It was immaculate and impeccable. The brooding and hateful batman and a spoiled symbol of courage being decimated by a villain whose motivations are the only things more obscure than his origin. BvS was arguably a clusterfuck of questionable and confusing material but it was also the most accurate iteration of Batman we have ever seen.
No offense Nolan fans, but Christian Bale was no Batman. Not by a long shot. It’s a pity that the Snyder cut of justice league will never surface, the movie should have been a home run but it only managed to graze the surface.
DC is getting a slow and steady move on. For now, the upcoming DC movie slate is not as clear as it was a while ago, because there are a lot of changes happening with the new projects coming while the old ones that were planned are moving out.
Till now, we only have confirmation for Aquaman, which is set to come out on December 21, 2018, Shazam!, coming out on April 5, 2019, Wonder Woman 2, coming out on November 1, 2019, Suicide Squad 2, in 2020 along with Flashpoint.
Rest all the movies that are currently “under development” are The Batman, Man of Steel 2, Joker vs. Harley Quinn, Black Adam, Deathstroke, Lobo, Justice League Dark, Joker Spin-off, Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Joker Origins, Harley Quinn Spin-off, New Gods, Cyborg and Green Lantern Corps but none of them have any sort of release dates confirmed just yet.
The recent reports of Geoff Johns stepping down as the Chief creative officer of DC Entertainment and will be writing the screenplay for Green Lantern Corps. Along with that, Deadline Subtly reported petty confidently that The Batman which currently has Matt Reeves attached as the writer and director of the movie will be a Reboot and begin a new franchise, which means that Affleck won’t be the Batman for the DCEU anymore.
For a while now, fans have wondered and rumors have floated regarding the attachment of Ben Affleck with the role of Batman. Ben Affleck was pretty positive about appearing in Reeves’ movie in Comic Con 2017, but things are totally different now. The Hollywood Reporter has also backed this with their own report focusing on the direction in which DC films president Walter Hamada wants to take the franchise moving forward.
This report included many films from the above-mentioned roster of the movies that are currently under development, and one of those was certainly The Batman. This report gave the status of the movie as according to it, Reeves turned in the first act of The Batman screenplay over Memorial Day weekend and this new take on Batman is said to be focusing on a younger version of Bruce Wayne, which is totally opposite to the version played by Ben Affleck. This has neither been confirmed nor denied by WB yet.
The report even states that just because of this, we may never see Affleck donning the Cape and Cowl again. Well having 2 Batmans at the same time would not be a great idea even though Ben Affleck’s Batman has probably been the best and the most comic accurate Batman ever. He still has one movie left in his contract but with this becoming a big thing, it is highly unlikely that we get to see an appearance from him in Flashpoint of Suicide Squad 2.
A younger actor is actually a great idea as we always wanted a long-term Batman to begin with, but Snyder brought in Affleck and gave us an older Batman, which was the best, but still was not the one we needed.
There have been talks of Jake Gyllenhaal being added to the role as he is a personal favorite of Matt Reeves as well. But given that Affleck has totally been wasted in the DCEU gives us a feeling of a great discomfort. There was nothing wrong with his portrayal, and he was totally let down by the movies he has been in. This is the sad reality we have to live in.
With Matt Reeves’s upcoming Batman movie, we may or may not get a better Batman, but the dream of a perfect DC shared Universe totally dies with it as The Batman is going to be separate from the DCEU and will be the first of a probable trilogy. The Penguin is said to be the main villain and the movie is said to begin production in 2019, which means that it could hit the theatres in late 2020 or 2021.
Be that as it may, a younger version of the Caped Crusader is maybe exactly what the fans need. We need someone to take the center position in the DCEU as the main figure of attraction like Iron Man and Captain America did for the Marvel cinematic universe. Maybe the time has come for the directors and creators of the DC extended universe to take a page from the Marvel cinematic universe’s book. Will it happen?
Unlikely. There’s a high possibility that this flux might not lead to anything better. We have to see how the studio proceeds because they are clearly at a crossroads. The new soft reboot that DC has on the books can be a make or break for the franchise, not that they have anything more to lose considering the epic blunder that was Justice League.
DC executives blamed the backlash from the fans on the one man who was not responsible for it, Zack Snyder. But then again, such is life. The man pursued to create a universe on par with the Marvel cinematic universe and only managed to confuse the masses. Maybe the preconceived notions of the masses were more important than comic accuracy.
A younger Bruce Wayne will give WB the opportunity to start anew, to tell the story they want in the way they want, perhaps too, are the entire concept of the DCEU more approachable to the common public. After all, BvS was a great movie but it is not the kind of movie that will be appreciated by the masses in its truest sense. The DCEU had always been a cinematic universe that favored the fans. At least that is exactly how Zack Snyder pictured it. The man had the vision, the current DCEU does not.
With Geoff Johns at the helm the franchise maybe they can salvage the situation, just maybe. The continuity is out of sync and the standalone origin stories are falling apart. But still, we hope, as fans must, for the return of the Phoenix, perhaps with a younger Batman.
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