New Report Claims Warner Bros. Discovery To Make Huge Changes To DC Comics, Want To Revitalize Superman On The Big Screen
John F. Trent
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A brand new report claims that the newly formed entity Warner Bros. Discovery led by CEO David Zaslav is planning to make big changes to DC Comics and DC Entertainment.
Source: Young Justice
This new report from Variety’s Brent Lang and Matt Donnelly claims “top leadership have been toying with the idea of turning DC into its own solidified content vertical.”
If this ends up happening the report notes it will effect DC Films currently in development, streaming series from Warner Bros. Television, and the overall DC creative team.
Source: Justice League #43
Interestingly, scooper Mikey Sutton made a similar claim during a livestream with YouTuber Syl Abdul back on February 1, 2022.
Sutton said, “He wants to consolidate everything film and TV as DC Studios. So it will be a consolidation.” He would reiterate, “He’s talking about consolidating both into one.”
He went on to detail, “What we’re looking at here, Syl, is a connected universe with television and film. In the same way that Marvel’s connecting the Disney Plus shows with their cinematic counterparts.”
According to Variety, not only does Warner Bros. Discovery allegedly want to have DC become its own solidified content vertical but they want “to have the disparate elements more closely aligned in order to maximize the value of the superhero stable.”
To this point, Zaslav is reportedly looking for someone with a business background to oversee and manage “all the different factions at DC.” Citing an anonymous source, the report claims Zaslav is “less interested in finding a creative guru” like Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios.
Source: Superman The Animated Series, Warner Bros. TV
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On the actual content side, the report says Zaslav and Discovery want to create a “coherent creative and brand strategy” something DC currently lacks as seen in many of their recent releases such as Peacemaker, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Birds of Prey, and Wonder Woman 1984.
As part of this coherent creative and brand strategy, Discovery wants to ensure DC Comics’ top characters like Superman are being utilized. The report claims Discovery believes “top-shelf characters such as Superman have been left to languish and need to be revitalized.”
Zaslav and his team also allegedly want to see more films like The Joker as they believe it is “a shining example of how second-billed characters from the DC library can and should be exploited.”
Source: Joker via Flashback FM YouTube
The claim to want to have a coherent creative and brand strategy, but then to also tout complete one-offs like The Joker seems to be at odds with one another so it will be interesting to see if there’s any actual validity to this report and what Warner Bros. Discovery does with DC moving forward.
However, Sutton provided details on this as well saying, “This whole pocket universe is something he wants to use sporadically. It’s not something that he just want to give out to anybody, ‘Hey get your own universe whatever.'”
“It will be a more Elseworlds thing and as sporadically as possible because he really wants to make this more streamlined and easier to understand for the general public,” Sutton explained.
Source: The Batman
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Sutton also notes there will be a DCEU going forward explaining, “because that’s the way of competing with Marvel. I mean it’s not a way of copying them, but it works.” He goes on to point to how Marvel Studios has created a number of original shows set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe that are connected to the theatrical releases.
He later added, “You can have secondary characters on television that are related to that central character. Like, you can’t have Ezra Miller on TV right? But you’re gonna have spin-offs from that franchise on HBO Max and then build it up from there.”
Source: The Flash (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
Sutton would further note, “They just want to redo the DCEU over again. They feel that they had the right idea but Hamada screwed it up. Totally screwed it up. Because what they had was working, but again they cut up BvS. They chopped up Josstice League and gave it to the wrong director. There were so many mistakes, but they had the right idea though.”
“Saying the Rock wants to create a DC Universe, he’s in line with [Zaslav] and they both want the same thing,” Sutton asserted.
Source: Black Adam (2022), Warner Bros. Pictures
The report from Variety further puts itself in question when it claims that under Walter Hamada DC Films has “achieved more consistency in terms of both the critical and commercial reception to the company’s movies.”
Looking at the actual reception and box office numbers tells a very different story. James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad only earned $55.8 million at the domestic box office and a measly $167.1 million at the global box office. It had an $185 million production budget.
The film did received a 90% Tomatometer Rating from Critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
The Suicide Squad wasn’t the only film that struggled at the box office. Wonder Woman 1984 only grossed $46.8 million domestically and a grand total of $166.3 million globally. It had a production budget of $200 million.
The film was also panned by critics only receiving a 58% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
And Birds of Prey, which the report actually recognizes as a miss, only grossed $84.1 million domestically and earned a total of $201.8 million globally. It had a production budget of $82 million.
The film only received a 79% Tomatometer Score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
Finally, one of the big changes the report claims that Warner Bros. Discovery will bring is a larger focus on video game development. Although the report does not provide any real details on this.
Gotham Knights and Suicide Kills The Justice League are two large DC Comics-based games that are currently in development.
Of note the report barely mentions the actual comic book publisher noting that “mining DC’s library of characters could help control spending as Warner Bros. Discovery owns the underlying intellectual property.”
Source: Gotham Knights
Any significant changes if any made by Warner Bros. Discovery for DC Films will more than likely take place following the release of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and Black Adam, Batgirl, and Blue Beetle.
They also reportedly have a Superman project from J.J. Abrams and racist Ta-Nehisi Coates in the works. Patty Jenkins is also expected to develop a third Wonder Woman film.
Source: Black Adam (2022), Warner Bros. Pictures
What do you make of this new report? What kind of changes do you want to see made by Warner Bros. Discovery when it comes to DC Comics?
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