With the Warner Brothers Discover merger, should DC emulate the MCU?
When it comes to DC movies, etc. I have thoughts.
With the Warner Brothers and Discover merger finalized-now it’s Warner Brothers Discovery-eyes are on what Warner Bros Discovery will do with its DC properties. This means animation, television, and motion pictures of course. The DCEU has always felt like it was step behind Marvel’s MCU. With Kevin Feige being such a visionary, having a destination in mind and charting a definite course of how to get there, by comparison the DC Extended Universe feels like an un-focused mess.
The MCU has evolved into a series of superhero stories where, in some way, one informs the other. They connect, even if just by easter eggs left in the script. Sometimes it’s as simple as posters in the background. Yet it’s evident that all these stories take place in a shared time and space and universe. That expectation can be a detriment.
For instance (a mild spoiler alert) in the most recent Moon Knight Episode on Disney+, Khonshu helps Moon Knight turn back the night sky. If this story wasn’t tied to anything else in the MCU, it’d be fine. Since, we know all things MCU connect, it makes viewers wonder, where are the Avengers at? Surely someone would want to look into what’s happening to the sky at this point.
Which brings me to the pros of why the DCEU benefits from having stories that don’t necessarily have to exist in the same shared universe.
In a recent Casual Wednesdays podcast, host Jarrod Jones walks out of The Batman, the most recent iteration of course, and the first thing he said was, “Marvel would never…” And he’s right. Marvel would never…or maybe they can’t…make a stand alone film about any one of the Marvel characters. They’ve backed themselves into a corner. Take the most recent Spidey film, No Way Home, for example. It went through great pains to tie the first two Spider-Man franchises into the shared MC Universe so everything felt more cohesive.
On the one hand: I really dig it. It’s fun seeing how each story is related to the other. Attending an event like Avengers Endgame, where all the movies that came before it joined together in this epic battle against Thanos, is a one-of-a-kind experience. No one did it at that size and scale before. At least not with giant movie franchises. The payoff from investing in 10 years of Marvel movies was incredible.
On the other hand: Marvel will never be able to give its audience anything like The Batman. If I want a dark and gritty take on The Punisher, he has to fit into the larger story. If a director employs some artistic license with how The Punisher is represented, or what the storyline may be, they can’t. They’ve got to conform to this bigger picture Feige has in mind.
This may raise some concerns about Warner Bros. Discovery’s plans moving forward. It’s no secret that they will be on the hunt for their own Kevin Feige. The hope being that, said person, will be able to re-structure the DCEU in a way to create more…uniformity. But is uniformity really what it needs? DC has successs in their animated properties, and live action television shows. A few examples are The Titans, Peacemaker and let’s not forget Joker; the stand alone film that brought home two Oscars! DC properties aren’t exactly doing badly.
One can argue that things can be handled better. Still I’d hate WBD to throw everything out the window and start from scratch. Things just need some tweaking. Finding the right executive to fill that task may be harder than expected. Kevin Feige gets a lot of props for how he steers the Marvel ship. Though, there’s some opportunities he’s missing in order to fit his rigid vision. If someone had done the same thing for DC we may have never gotten The Batman that we did. I know it’s silly to imagine missing out on things we never knew we wanted, but I think about this concept all the time.
DC comics is releasing a comic mini-series where they re-imagine the Justice League as dinosaurs. Doesn’t that sound so freakin’ awesome?! Yet, if that concept doesn’t fit into a ‘phase’ of the DCEU it’ll never live past the page.
At the end of the day, Warner Brothers Discovery is going to do what it wants. Sometimes too much control can be stifling and can rob fans of important adaptations such as Joker and The Batman. I’m just saying, I hope whoever they put in charge leaves some room for a bit of experimentation. The MCU is great and all, but I’m not quite sure I want the DCEU to become a clone of Marvel. If that does happen, it’d mean the only place left to turn to for outside the box comic book movies…is Sony.