Chief Executive Officer and president of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) David Zaslav reportedly wants major changes to the studio’s handling of DC Comics properties, including putting a lot of projects on the chopping block and insisting all DC films be theatrical releases. However, I think there’s a better long-term approach for DC brands. I believe WBD should create a shared DCEU exclusively for HBO Max, and reserve theatrical for team-up “event” films and the biggest character IP, in a way that will catch up to Marvel and generate more revenue in the long run.
Tyler Hoechlin stars in "Superman & Lois"
Source: The CW
Fair warning: This article explores the options and discusses content production from a business perspective, so I’ll be using terms I don’t use in artistic assessments and broader cinema and streaming conversations. I also assume the obvious, which is that most of the existing DC TV and streaming shows, as well as a lot of the planned films, will be cancelled no matter what else happens, so when I speak of cleaning the slate and so on, I’m talking about inevitable scenarios rather than advocating the cancellation of shows and film projects. It’s a long and complex discussion, and I make early broader points with examples I revise later in the article to make more specific suggestions about how to apply those points.
Some of WBD’s changes are already manifesting. Much of the CW’s so-called ArrowVerse and other DC streaming series have been cancelled or are already at the end of their runs, and at least one planned DC film — a Wonder Twins movie exclusively for HBO Max — is dead in the water, with more likely to follow.
So there’s going to be a big vacancy on the streaming platform when it comes to new live-action DC content, right when the newly merged company needs to see improvements rather than declines in branded IP revenue. Films provide great viewership, when you actually have some, but there’s not much else in the way of new DC films or series launching to fill that gap for HBO Max for quite a while, and what’s coming is clearly going to be more limited for a while.
But DC is among the studio’s biggest and most important IP, and a stoppage of this sort with a theatrical mandate is going to mean a lot of up-front expenses and protracted waiting periods for eventual payoff, while the IP that supposedly has been languishing and needs to be revitalized sits largely unused for months or years before more than a trickle makes its way to the streaming platform after building a foundation in cinemas.
This is a commitment to a long, slow process that costs a lot on the front end and takes years to reach the desired destination. Which is fine, except I feel it probably runs counter to a lot of other plans and expectations among the new studio leadership. This is especially true if part of the goal is to create a powerful content creating company and streaming platforms that can be purchased by a bigger entity down the road.
I’m not against theatrical, and have long been an advocate of theaters as a permanent part of our society and an important place for communal experience in a setting we can’t fully replicate at home. And from a business perspective, I get the appeal and necessity of maintaining a solid theatrical presence. But there is also some math and considerations of world-building — in the context of replicating the sort of success Marvel Studios has had and to actually catch up to them on equal footing — that I think is worth considering as an alternative approach for DC films and series. And keep in mind as you read, all of this is about making and releasing DC content, so any remarks about theatrical and streaming are in that context.
Theatrical shouldn’t be abandoned, of course, but it shouldn’t be the natural habitat for all or most of their productions, either. Instead, a balance of HBO Max big-budget streaming films and series, alongside several big-screen major IP releases (Justice League and other team-ups, plus the top tier characters who can shoulder the occasional summer/Christmas blockbuster release) is at once an obvious yet untried approach thus far for the DC Comics properties.
A big-budget series on HBO Max is more cost effective and quicker to produce, and can reach a larger audience as part of a larger revenue stream in the long run. This would seem to mean sacrificing some short-term revenue advantages; but in fact the existing stable of completed DC movies can be spread across the next couple of years as a buffer, filling the gap with content likely to generate good revenue from box office and related merchandise. Meanwhile, streaming would have this two-year period to develop new rebooted films and series for a host of DC properties
I’ll use Superman & Lois as an example to make a simple financial point. Superman & Lois’ budget is around $7+ million per 45 minute episode now and it looks great. If they raise the episode budgets to $20+ million, then it would look close to the quality of a theatrical release. So it would cost roughly $40 million to make a 90 minute Superman & Lois cinema-quality streaming movie. Let’s just boost it by 25% to make the budget $50 million, for extra oomph and an easier number for the rest our math.
How impressive would that be, compared to the already-great quality of that show?
Instead of a single $180-200 million budget theatrical Superman movie every three years, WBD could have this type of HBO Max Superman movies at a cost allowing two or three of the Superman films to release each year. They can be produced on a schedule similar to a series, ensuring at least two or three Superman films each year. This also saves on costly marketing for equivalent theatrical releases, too.
Now imagine starting a new Superman franchise this way — not one big theatrical movie with total production and marketing costs of around $300 million, but instead two or three movies released as a trilogy each year, exclusively on HBO Max. And this same approach is of course possible for the rest of DC Comics’ superhero characters.
The first year, for example, HBO Max could release a Superman trilogy, a Green Lantern trilogy, a Wonder Woman trilogy, an Aquaman trilogy, a Flash trilogy, and a Cyborg trilogy in the same year and for about the same combined production costs as making just three big-budget theatrical releases. I left out Batman for the moment, because that’s one of the more complicated aspects, and I want to focus first on the larger point about how cost-effective a streaming approach could be in theory.
Making high-quality DC superhero movies exclusively released on HBO Max provides more content at a faster rate, which makes it possible to actual do what nobody thinks can be done — catch up with Marvel. It would also be a huge selling point for HBO Max to drive subscriptions. And subscription revenue can be much more valuable than theatrical revenue, which make a streaming-focused approach best in the long run.
The average filmgoer sees maybe five movies per year, at roughly $9 per ticket, for about $45 per viewer per year in ticket sales. WBD would be lucky to get 1/2 of a person's total ticket purchases, or $23 for the year per individual audience member. That’s how much money per year WBD can expect from an average audience member. But let’s raise it to $25 even, to simplify the math. Then the studio splits that revenue with theaters and certain governments overseas, so let’s say they get $15 of that just to be generous.
A subscription to HBO Max is $180 per year, almost all of which goes into the studio’s pocket without being split with outside companies and industries. Let’s reduce that down to $150 per year, to simplify the math again. That means an HBO Max release will be just as good as a theatrical release even if it only attracts about 10% of the viewership a theatrical release would attract. Remember, we figured the total annual revenue from all theatrical viewers for all of WBD’s theatrical releases, compared against total annual revenue from all streaming on HBO Max.
Even if some of these figures are off by a bit, the overall difference in expenses and revenue per audience member is so significant that the overall point remains: it’s more profitable to generate and retain viewership on HBO Max, using theatrical for only the biggest projects that serve as blockbuster revenue generators and high-profile branding projects for DC and WBD in theaters and on HBO Max.
In these ways, HBO Max has an advantage over theatrical as a revenue stream, especially when major global IP are used as exclusive content to drive subscriptions. The DC brand could be reserved almost entirely for HBO Max content, where high-quality films & series would be cheaper and faster to produce for a larger audience, for an overall long-term bigger revenue stream.
WBD could rely on the crossovers, team-ups, and big event movies for theatrical releases. In those cases, the budgeting would be high enough that it’s worth spending extra for a theatrical experience that rakes in box office and serves as a driver for merchandising and the rest of the DC slate that can only be viewed with a subscription to HBO Max. (And for the record, despite constant talk of nobody knowing how to make Superman for modern audiences, Superman & Lois has lots of great writers who get the characters and should be part of developing any new Superman projects.)
Meaning, crucially, theatrical releases must be timed for release to fit into the narratives of the exclusive streaming shows and films. The stories must be properly planned and coordinated, so that when the series and streaming-only films reach their crescendo, that’s when the crossover/team-up theatrical release hits and ties it all up, or delivers whatever climax fits for the timing. Theatrical releases here should get long runs before going to exclusive availability on HBO Max, ahead of any 4K/UHD release.
Yes, it will take time to get everything into place, but it has to happen anyway and eventually it pays off better. It doesn’t abandon theatrical entirely, it simply reserves it for IP that are considered the best bets — and keep in mind, this is all to get a new DCEU in place and catch up to Marvel quickly in the next several years, ahead of a crossroads moment to either sell the company and let the new owners expand this new DCEU into a greater balance of theatrical and streaming, or don’t sell the company and plan this sort of potential expansion by WBD alone.
I think the shorter theatrical window — say, 30 to 45 days — can also work for these particular releases, but that typically means adjustments to the revenue sharing, and I believe part of the strategy that works best for DC is to maximize the benefits of theatrical on its own merits, which means the studio keeps a larger portion of earlier ticket sales and thus gets a larger up-front bonus for releasing theatrically. There’s no rush to get to streaming with these films, since they are explicitly serving broader and more nuanced purposes for the overall DCEU and HBO Max plan. Visibility and maximum theatrical exposure is part of the equation for these properties.
It seems like one of the biggest problems Warner has had with the success of their DC films over the past many years is directly related to something rarely discussed — choices of which stories from the comics to use as inspiration, and how to adapt them in ways most appealing to mainstream global audiences. But these aren’t secrets or codes in need of deciphering, you can easily Google any superhero and terms like “best stories” and “best comics” to see that while any individual list is bound to have differences, they mostly include the same stories but in slightly different ordering.
The trick is to ask the right questions at the right times, though. Not just “best Superman stories/comics” but rather “best Superman origin stories/comics,” for example. Or “best Wonder Woman-Aquaman team up.” It’s already curated by fans, reviewers, comic creators themselves, and mainstream readers of online content.
WBD needs to know what inspiration for each character’s origin they want, which primary “history” they want to assemble from comics to be a general source of inspiration for the character’s arcs and antagonists, and which crossovers and team-ups they want to use for how the heroes are introduced to — and become teammates with — the other superheroes.
The origin will generally take inspiration from one or two main sources, with bits included from a few others. The history will be primarily a set of perhaps three to five of the most iconic stories featuring a hero’s biggest villains. There will be two or three of the character’s personal big crossover “events” to include other heroes, and maybe three major team-ups in Justice League (these three stories will be the same for all of the first slate of main characters, by the way).
So, for each individual character, there will be about five or six stories solo stories, a couple of crossover stories with the character as the primary but with supporting appearances by other superheroes, and then three shared team-ups as the Justice League or other group name. The six “solo” stories would then be broken down into main ideas, arcs, villains, supporting characters, and threads that connect any of them — or threads that can be tied together to create new ones. This in turn would be the basis for developing the set of films and series based on these outlines.
Each character would have a separate team, all of the teams aware of the guidelines and expectations, the goals and approaches to achieve those goals, and they’d develop a plan for their given character that can be used to bring aboard writers and showrunners and directors to develop into full projects. All of this would have to be overseen by someone with a mandate and control equivalent to Kevin Feige, answering directly to the Zaslay, with DC allowed to essentially operate as its own studio with great autonomy as long as the results speak for themselves.
This will be messy and not all of the source material stories will align perfectly as-is, but that doesn’t matter. The stories won’t be adapted literally, they are inspiration and from these sets a new version will be constructed that is unique to the live-action series and films. This is how the MCU approaches their comic book source material and the best ways to adapt it for live action, and the results speak for themselves.
I know many fans hate comparisons to Marvel, but whether you like it or not, that’s considered the “gold standard” for developing a successful shared cinematic universe. Besides, the MCU is using a modernized but largely unaltered template established in the 1978 Superman movie, so why even be upset about DC looking at Marvel when the modern superhero film is rooted in an approach created for a DC superhero?
Seriously, go back and rewatch Superman, and tell me you don’t see clearly how the cinematic approach to casting and epic presentation of the fantastical elements combines with the tone and world-building for sequels. Zod’s team is built into the opening, delivering an Easter Egg threat that one day Jor-El’s heirs will bow down before him, and it’s all part of the idea of filming two movies simultaneously to ensure the connection between them. There’s a reason Marvel very openly says they learned the right lessons from Superman, which got the template right the very first time.
I don’t believe having a plan and specific sources of inspiration chosen for building out these franchises inherently stifles creativity or artistic expression, any more than it does for the James Bond films or for all of the terrific streaming series that hire directors and writers for individual episodes. There’s a wide space for artistic expression in adapting source material, as films like Jaws and The Godfather and hundreds of other adapted films prove. Again, these shouldn’t be direct adaptations, the source material will be a set of chosen stories that might not directly fit together as-is, and the goal is to build something entirely new and surprising from the inspiration.
So, if you’ve read this far, thank you and congratulations. Now let me clarify that I’ve spoken in hypotheticals and largely focused on the idea of how this data speaks to the advantages of developing a lot of streaming DC movies, but in fact I think only some of the content should really be released as full-length films on HBO Max, with most of it being relatively big-budget miniseries or ongoing regular series.
Instead of releasing two or three movies per year for every character, the real approach would in this scenario be to do maybe six 30-40 minute episodes for a streaming miniseries, then comes a streaming movie to cap off the year for that character. Each character would be adapted like this, in theory — several episodes of a miniseries, followed by a streaming film. Several characters per year would have shows and films, and there would be a tie-in theatrical release that brings some or all of them together.
My feeling is that the best way to start is to let the miniseries and solo films stand alone, albeit with references to make it clear it’s all in the same shared world. But keep it on the origins and their first big foray into the world as costumed heroes, then top it all off with the first team-up of the biggest characters. Next year, repeat but with a new storyline for each solo series — and this time, they can have a common threat so the stories tie together, to create spinoff shows and lead into more streaming films and a big team-up theatrical release again.
There is so much room to play with the particulars, so many great stories to use as inspiration for brand new approaches to those ideas, and having a basic framework to hand it on doesn’t weaken or reduce it — it enhances it, it provides a necessary basic structure that makes it possible to pursue bigger, divergent ideas as they come up. The plan isn’t just to stick to a ridged plan, it’s to have such a great framework and so much talent drawing from so much amazing inspiration that you can change course, adapt, embrace new things that work, cast off things that don’t work, and build the strongest possible version of the DC world.
Here’s where I infuriate many of you with an oversimplification and a comparison that in truth isn’t a great one due to the nuances and differences in character, but it’s also a great comparison because of underlying perceptions and broad concepts of character, not to mention simple ways to envision something that makes the larger point even if it’s a highly imprecise comparison.
Think about Chris Evans playing Steve Rogers in the MCU. Then imagine him wearing Iron Man’s armor. It’s not hard to imagine, right? It’s Captain America but in Tony Stark’s best armor, flying and bullet proof, but he can get knocked around by explosions, he can lift enormous impossible amounts yet still has some limits, he can shoot energy blasts, he can move at rocket speed, but it’s still Steve Rogers personality and face inside. Can you see that in your mind and wrap your head around what that concept of the character would feel like? That’s one hypothetical approach to Superman that’s instantly easy to imagine and which could be immensely popular.
Superman can be powerful and do all of the amazing things he’s known for, but it’s possible to show him progressively growing more powerful the longer he’s on Earth. There’s fun to be had with a Superman who starts out akin to Iron Man levels of power, but without armor, and Captain America levels of goodness and kindness and humility. That’s amazing power, capable of toe-to-to fist fights with Thanos, being close to a nuke detonating in space, lifting a cruise ship, and so on, with a vulnerable human heart underneath.
There do need to be differences in how DC films are approached compared to Marvel, since Marvel and DC are different in a way that goes to the heart of how they create characters and tell stories. Marvel uses larger narratives about the human condition and about gods and mortals to tell individual character stories; DC uses individual character narratives to tell stories about the human condition and about gods and mortals. It may not sound like much, but it determines tone and themes.
And these truths are evident in the stories themselves, and so should also inform the selection of stories that serve as inspiration for the series and films. The result would be similar to the MCU approach in all of the right ways that matter most in the context of successful adaptation into shared universes, while retaining differences that will appeal to audiences and reflect what’s best about DC.
Finding the core of these characters, the essence of what they have to say and what it tell us about ourselves, and understanding what about it appeals to mainstream audiences, is much easier than it sounds.
Take Batman, the most obvious example. We all already know what audiences love most about Batman and want to see more of — the appeal is in the lie that Batman is the superhero we could really become if we had enough money and training. Batman is in a world where the villains represent fears we all have about our world — be it madness or corruption or questions we can’t answer or the loss of what we value — in a cityscape much like any urban center, and one person standing up as a fantasy in which the things we fear are made to fear us instead, where revenge is had and nobody else (us included) need suffer those fears again.
So, live-action Batman works best when he’s in a world that resembles our own and presents itself as realistic, and in which the fantastical elements are grounded in some ways to help us suspend our disbelief. The more effort is put into making the rest of his world seem “realistic,” the more audiences will grant leeway for the threats to become increasingly implausible.
Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy cemented this impression and preference in the minds of mainstream audiences, and Matt Reeves The Batman returned to that approach with great success precisely because, even though viewers also enjoy other approaches for Batman, that’s the approach audiences like best for Batman.
Likewise, I think the film Wonder Woman established the exact right approach for the Amazon Goddess-Warrior. Aquaman, too, was a first film that played pretty close to exactly right for the Atlantean superhero (and it learned the exact right lessons from the Thor franchise). Tonally and thematically, both films feel much more like a return to the modernized Superman template that informed the MCU’s approach.
But I know what you’re thinking. Those two films don’t seem to fit with the approach to Batman I described, right? Look again. Batman Begins directly applies the Superman 1978 template, more than just about any other subsequent DC movie to date aside from perhaps Wonder Woman, and while the film is still a “gritty reboot” that is “grounded in realism,” that first Batman film is not nearly as hardcore about its pseudo-realism as The Dark Knight three years later. Watching Batman Begins, you could follow it up by watching Wonder Woman and Aquaman and feel it all fits together fine as a shared world.
Batman Begins is more like Superman from 1978, which means it’s more like an MCU movie. Need further proof? Watch Iron Man and Batman Begins back to back.
There’s the answer for how to fit Batman into a shared superhero universe. In his own films, just keep him on solo adventures against Batman Begins type of grounded realism — fear gas can exist, secret ninja armies can exist, microwave emitters can exist, Batman can fly, villains wear masks because it’s creepy and better for the movie, and so on. Answer honestly, if Ra’s had returned in the third film and his survival from the train wasn’t explained other than having Ra’s say, “You survived, Bruce. Do you think I put myself on that train without a way to survive?” would you really have been that upset or mad? Would it have destroyed the illusion of realism? Surely not.
This is a Batman who can remain firmly grounded — meaning, again, as much so as Batman Begins with its sci-fi and ninjas and whatnot — while he later teams up with other superheroes for crossover events and Justice League movies. You just shift expectations, the same way you shift them for Captain America be beaten by Winter Soldier in a solo film, but he can take a punch from Thanos in an Avengers movie.
We can do a quick version of this for other characters as well, to further make the point. Green Lantern is easy to imagine as Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy smashed together. Flash is akin to Spider-Man, not directly as a character, but his world and tone for a series/film franchise are probably best approached similar to Spidey’s, with a dash of NCIS. For Cyborg, think Doctor Strange meets The Matrix.
The overarching tone that I think perfectly blends DC’s thematic and tonal sensibilities (and has done with films like Batman Begins) with what the MCU did cinematically and structurally can be seen in the X-Men franchise, especially films like X2: X-Men United, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and The Wolverine, proudly displaying comic book sensibilities and the fantastical within a world of grounded realism that still has fun with the adapting source material stories into something unique and different.
Now comes the hardest part, including for me personally, because it’s about Batman and goes against a core principle I’ve long espoused regarding Batman in live-action.
I think Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson built the Batman franchise we need now, but instead of remaining entirely standalone (as I’d personally prefer it, in an ideal world), I feel it is precisely the mix of grounded realism and boundaries-pushing toward the more fantastical that existed in The Batman, and thus can serve as a building block for a new DCEU. Reeves wants to keep his Batman films within certain boundaries of illusionary realism, but importantly he’s specified not just a willingness but an actual intent to try to find ways to incorporate some of the more fantastical elements and villains into his bat-world. It’s simultaneously a baseline world that looks very realistic, but it’s filled with fantastical elements that have more leeway to be weird precisely because everything around them keeps them grounded.
You know what that sounds like? The Superman template again, using cinematic realism and grandeur, peopling it with award-winning iconic veteran performers around a younger intense lead, and let the seriousness of the approach and verisimilitude of the surrounding world exist as a backdrop to the fantasy stuff.
The noir stylings and nuances are what makes it feel different, but the structure is there and it strengthens the whole production. It also allows this Batman to potentially exist with the right type of other DC heroes, when he can step outside of Gotham on occasion for team-up movies, or gets a visit on the rooftops from another hero seeking advice or assistance in another character’s series or film.
With the existing completed films releasing in the next couple of years, then, there’s a chance to develop a whole new slate of DC shows and streaming films exclusive to HBO Max to reboot the primary Justice League heroes (and a few lesser-known ones with great potential to take off quickly), and plan to set them within a larger shared universe with Matt Reeves Batman series.
Meantime, let Reeves build out the bat-centric corner and Gotham City for a larger DC universe. I assume in the next couple of years while the final slate of previous DCEU films are released, HBO Max can get the Arkham Asylum series finished and maybe a Catwoman spinoff miniseries or film as well, and Reeves could be given a bonus to start work on the next Batman movie as part of the lead-in to a big promo launch of the new totally rebooted DCEU that shares a world with Pattinson’s Batman.
Again, let this Batman and his world remain solo and largely unaffected directly by the rest of the DCEU, except when it’s part of a team-up movie or is a cameo/supporting part of some other hero’s story for a film or something. Batman generally can then be watched as its own thing, to retain the illusionary realism that helps mainstream audiences best settle into Gotham City for each movie. And every year or two, there’s a team-up or crossover opportunity where Batman will be alongside other superheroes, but it’ll be clear he operates best alone and doesn’t want to spend any more time than necessary on missions or threats outside of Gotham.
The alternative to this use of Matt Reeves’ Batman for world-building a new DCEU is to have a separate HBO Max exclusive Batman series and streaming movies like the others — like Batman Begins if Ra’s has a magic Lazarus Pit that brings him back from the dead and Batman wears a costume similar to Ben Affleck’s in Batman v Superman — and let the Matt Reeves movies be their own standalone solo theatrical series.
In this approach, there could be entirely stand-alone DC superhero franchises released as theatrical-first blockbuster productions but not worrying about being a shared universe. Just make each their own separate world, let each franchise director and writer team have freedom to explore their own vision, and reserve the idea of a shared universe for the HBO Max exclusive content (which in this scenario would not be released theatrically). Theatrical wouldn’t be under pressure to release three superhero films every year with tie-ins, it could stick to the biggest brands — Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and perhaps a few others — for a regular one or two films per year with self-contained stories.
The danger of having two live-action Batmen has always seemed to be a bee in Warner’s development bonnet, but I think those types of concerns should wane (no pun intended) at this point, since there are three different live-action Batmen in completed films at the moment.
If the new rebooted DCEU were to remain an HBO exclusive, and the theatrical realm was limited to existing completed films (and maybe a few more to finish out various trilogies, if necessary and financially advisable) plus the Matt Reeves Batman series, then that sets up a situation five years from now where the theatrical slate has been mostly cleared and HBO Max has a big ongoing shared DC universe of exclusive series and films, all of which saves money and gets more bang for the buck from each project. And, done right, they will be immensely popular with audiences.
Besides all of that, however, it does another important thing. It’s sort of a “palate-cleansing” to make room for and sets up DC IP for even greater development into merchandising and spinoffs, and possibly bring the most popular of the HBO Max series and films into theaters for 30-45 day windows, or other options that establish a big cinematic universe with the streaming exclusives. The library of content, because so much can be done due to the cost savings and format, can build the equivalent of entire “phases” each year, so by 2028 DC will be at the same comparable stage as the MCU, with a similarly deep content library to boot.
This sort of large quantity of content would be impossible to produce within theatrical windows, and would in fact be a bad idea in theaters because of the danger of oversaturation that makes audiences burn out too quickly on too much DC content too close together in theaters.
Since WBD will likely eventually be bought by a bigger company — perhaps Apple, for example, since they have the money and the forward-thinking approach without the constraints of long history of institutional commitment to old assumptions and ways of doing business in Hollywood that honestly are embedded into the fabric of a huge studio like WB — I think this approach would position them nicely for success in both the short term and long term.
The studio could set it all up and then hand off the decision to bring it all back out into theatrical (or partially, for team-up and crossover events, which I think is the best approach) to whomever buys WBD, letting all of the IP’s potential inform the buying price without risking the actual attempting; or they could take it out into theatrical and plan on such huge success that it vastly increases the value of the company when it’s time to merge. The later could hypothetically even turn out to be such a successful new stage of WBD’s “revival” that the studio becomes big enough and successful enough that they aren’t looking to be acquired, and Zaslav could wind up a movie studio head with a success rate and reputation on par with Alan Horn and Bob Iger.
Personally, I would favor doing this in a way so in about five years time theatrical has been cleared except for The Batman sequels, HBO Max would have about ten new rebooted DCEU shows and streaming films. I’d do the radical thing of spending a year with separate teams of producers and writers developing each of the main Justice League characters’ plans (outlining enough content for two years’ worth of miniseries and streaming films), then put all of those plans into production roughly at the same times (or as close together and quickly as possible) and complete them within two years, and release them (first the origins and initial meeting for one year, then the first crossover storyline that informs each solo series and builds into a big team-up event) across two more years, for a total of five years. The fifth year from now, then, would see the launch of a brand new HBO Max exclusive DCEU, with the current one wrapped up two years prior.
At that point, then, it would take just a few more years and this new DCEU would have a content library of films and series comparable to the MCU’s collective output, except it will have started out with the company’s most powerful IP and will have developed it within streaming where there is a larger consistent captive audience, using theatrical to great advantage for enhancing the footprint of the overall DC stable of content. By 2030, the DCEU should have the goal of being a dominant brand driving streaming and theatrical revenue the way the studio has long sought.
I’ll close by saying I realize opinions are a dime a dozen. So for whatever it’s worth, you can go back and read my personal suggestions for adapting Batman, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman, and compare those suggestions to what eventually happened, and weigh the value of my suggestions. My track record is solid in that regard, and I’m proud of it. So I believe this history combined with my knowledge as a fan and my awareness of studio needs and industry expectations as a screenwriter and entertainment journalist provide me with the knowledge, insights, and accuracy to make it worth offering my thoughts on all of this.
Whatever happens, I hope WBD does better than AT&T did with the planning and properties, because I fear neither WB’s nor DC’s brand can take another failed merger-reboot. And if it turns out WBD can’t make it work, then I’d expect the consensus in Hollywood and on Wall Street at that point to be “it’s time to sell or license DC Comics to a studio willing and able to deliver a workable sustainable successful plan.” But I have hope and faith WBD can accomplish it, and I’m be rooting for them, because I love these properties and want to see DC finally achieve the full degree of popularity and acclaim its characters deserve.
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