When it comes to the two titans of the comic-book worlds Marvel has certainly been winning the movie battle. After the peerless (standalone) Dark Knight trilogy, the DC Extended Universe that began in earnest with 2013’s Man of Steel has never managed to match the compelling continuity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which set the benchmark for crossover stories with massive appeal. It’s now DC’s time to fight back. Under the stewardship of two freshly appointed co-CEOs/ co-chairs - James Gunn (writer/director of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad) and Peter Safran (producer of Aquaman, Shazam!, The Suicide Squad), the DCU is being reset, with an ambitious multimedia course being charted that will span a decade (at least).
DC has been disconnected in film and television for a long time,’ says Gunn. ‘One of our jobs - mine and Peter’s - is to come in, and make sure that the DCU is connected in film, television, gaming and animation. That the characters ate consistent, played by the same actors, and it works within one story.’
The newly renamed DC Studios and its centralised, all-encompassing vision is ‘unprecedented’ says Safran. Although it’s not an entirely ground-up reboot. Not just yet, anyway. Henry Cavill might be out as Superman, and Patty Jenkins won’t complete her Wonder Woman trilogy, but there are four pre-planned DC movies releasing in 2023. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is out now. Gunn’s assertion that ‘Shazam has always been kind of in his own part of the DCU, so he connects very well,’ feels non-committal. Shazam! director David F. Sandberg has said that, ‘What I’ve been told is that there’s nothing in the Shazam films that contradicts the future plans for DC,’ so Shazam’s DCU future may well depend on FotG’s box-office take.
Or, it could be retconned out of existence by this summer’s . The standalone solo movie for comics arc. The multipletimeline nature of the story means that it could be a convenient way to reboot the DCU, and recast every character. While the film incorporates elements that go back as far as Zack Snyder’s movies and beyond (Michael Keaton Ben Affleck’s Batmen appear, as does Michael Shannon’s Zod), fresh pieces have been put on the board: in place of Superman, the trailer features Sasha Calle as Supergirl. Gunn even says ‘resets the entire DC Universe’, though given the reaction to the trailer, and the fact that Gunn calls the film ‘one of the best superhero movies I’ve ever seen’, they might not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Much will no doubt rest on the recovery and rehabilitation of problematic star Miller.
