(Warning, the following will probably contain things you might not agree with or may not even realize, viewer discretion will not do you any help now.)
Now before we begin I would like to make it clear that I like Detective Comics and I do understand it's importance and significance to the comic book industry. But we need to talk about the fact that for the past several years they haven't had the best of luck with the movies. And if you think this will be an article constantly bashing Zack Snyder, you'd be wrong. We are simply going to be talking about the true culprits of why the DCEU failed and how it didn't work out the way Warner Bros wanted it to be. To put it simply, this will not be an anti Snyder article, it's just going over what happened to the franchise that had plenty of potential to be just as good as Marvel, but was in the end, completely wasted.
1.) How the DCEU started
Now to start out this article, we have to ask ourselves the following question, what is the DCEU? If you're going to answer with "oh well the DCEU was just DC's answer to the MCU that didn't quite work out..." then I'm going to stop you right there. While that is the answer you might want to give, deep inside, you want to answer with each of the following:
Turning Superman from a hero who fights for a better tomorrow into an emo goth teenager
Batman and Superman becoming instant friends after discovering their moms have the same name
The misuse and mistreatment of Wonder Woman
Suicide Squad 2016 being a Frankenstein monster of other movies
the hijacking of the Justice League movie
Joss Whedon's fall from grace
Second film syndrome
Ezra Miller and his erratic behavior
Black Adam bombing harder than Wild Wild West
Security System TAKES CONTROL OF SQUIDWARDS HOUSE (this is a joke)
This: this is what people think of when they say DCEU. A failure of a franchise with moments that live on in infamy and characterizations that range from bizzare to ludacris. Now to figure out why the DC Universe became the butt of every joke since 2013, we have to address the following thing that most people may find hard to believe. But characters like Superman and Batman, were never taken seriously by Warner Brothers. It's hard to believe considering how the first two Christopher Reeve and Tim Burton Batman movies are wildly regarded today as classics, but in actuality they went through very troubled productions considering that Warner Bros intitially wanted them to be comedies but people like Richard Donner and Michael Ulsan fought to keep them from being that way, up until the point they were booted off future projects and turned the franchises into the jokes we know them now with Superman 3 and Quest for Peace and Batman and Robin. The road to how we got here is very much a complicated one that would require multiple articles to cover, but we will stick to the DCEU.
I will start off by saying that for brief moment in time, Warner Bros was considering doing a crossover event with Superman and Batman going back to the early 2000's with the Batman Begins iteration of the character and the Superman Returns iteration of Superman, sounds like a pretty cool concept right? But that sort of thing had a catch, the film would surmise if both films were successful. Only one of them was, Batman Begins, while Superman Returns underperformed and received a lukewarm response making Warner Bros pull the plug on the planned crossover overall and continued to focus on the dark knight trilogy. However, in 2008 the meterotic success of Iron Man lead Warner Bros to try and do it again with the then upcoming Avengers movie on the way and wanted to capitalize on Marvel's success as possible. Which brings us to the first entry in the series:
2.) Man of the division of fans
So in 2011, Warner Bros laid the groundwork for Man of Steel to be made, with 300 and Watchmen director Zack Snyder attached to direct with Christopher Nolan producing and David Goyer writing. For those who don't know, Man of Steel's gimmick was that it was going to portray Superman in a more grounded and more realistic manner, which keep in mind, is NOT a bad idea. Remember, Man of Steel was not a bad idea and I can see the appeal in wanting to do a more modern take on one of the most iconic characters in all of comic books... When it's done well and not just for the sake of it! But to it's credit it had a lot going for it, the marketing was pretty good and it did look interesting to say the least, but when it was released in June 14th, 2013 the reception towards it wasn't the worst in Superman history, but it was still heavily divisive. With people praising the film for doing things differently and trying to portray Superman in a different light, but some didn't really like the overall portrayal and the consistent bleak and damper tone it had and the constant collateral damage Superman caused that would make Michael Bay say was too much, and most people hated the controversial ending in which Superman kills Zod and doesn't seem to be overall affected by it in the next scene, almost like it never happened. One thing people do agree on is that Henry Cavill is a good choice to play Superman and does his best with the material he was given. Basically speaking, it wasn't the worst in the series, it was just heavily divisive. But that didn't stop it from receiving $670.1 million worldwide at the box office despite the mixed reviews it received. And because of this, a sequel was inevitably on the way. So this gave Warner Brothers the go ahead to make the long awaited crossover film with Batman and Superman, which was announced a month later.
3.) What?! Did we just become best friends?! Yup!
So following the events of Man of Steel, Warner Bros felt confident enough to want to do a follow up with Zack Snyder returning to direct with David Goyer and Argo writer Chris Terrio to write the film, and Warner Bros gave Zack Snyder more creative control this time despite the divisive nature the first film got. They went ahead with it anyway because hitting the reset button after a film that just recieved a split reaction would have been bad optics, and they didn't want to deal with a potential backlash. So this time, they gave Zack Snyder more creative power than the first film, so of course the announcement of the Batman/Superman crossover film was met with much, much speculation as to who would be the Caped Crusader in the film, the answer was Ben Affleck as the DCEU Batman, which as always, was met with backlash. Even though he had a very impressive track record and everyone had moved on from his protrayal of Daredevil but that's just the way it was back then. So in 2016, people lined up to see the movie in action and see the crossover event that was years in the making and sat down to see what should have been an epic movie event of the century... and were vastly disappointed by it. So what lead to this you might be wondering? Warner Bros meddling with the product.
The movie is infamous for having too many plot points being crammed in at once, an incoherent plot, terrible fight sequences and cgi, cringe dialouge, and having an abundance of characters that have no impact or relevance to the plot. It was the way it was because Warner Bros was trying desperately to catch up to Marvel and clearly wanted their own cinematic universe but failed miserably at it. What people liked about the first Man of Steel movie was either retconned, or just wasn't there and felt like an insult to the people who were willing to give the franchise a chance. Doesn't help that Warner Bros extensively cut out scenes in the movie that would have at least helped make the plot make a little more sense but the movie was released in a neutured format and was recieved much more negatively than Man of Steel was. The reason behind this was to extortionate the audience by having them pay extra for an ultimate cut of the movie for the home video release. Which is a very scumbag move on Warner Bros part.
In terms of Rotten Tomatoes scores, Man of Steel was given a 56% where as Dawn of Justice was given a 28% score. And while the first film didn't win many awards, it was still nominated for several nominations at numberous award shows, Dawn of Justice may not have won the worst picture of the year category at the 2017 razzie awards, it it was still nominated. That my friends, is a step down. And before anyone comes at me with the argument that the razzies are often known for nominating movies that aren't really bad and ignore films that are just as bad, if not worse that what they normally nominate, while that is definitely true, for now I will refute that with:
Apples and Oranges
Different Times
Different Circumstances
Different Pop Culture
Our focus is on Warner Bros doing terrible things to the DC Universe, not other movies.
The movie is noticeable for having the first cinematic debut of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman being played by Gal Gadot (🤮) an appearance that many people have said was out of place and wouldn't fit into the narrative it was trying to tell... and they were right. Wonder Woman completely feels like she was a last minute addition just to garner brownie points from people who waited years for this character to make her appearance and she virtually does nothing in this movie. Which brings us to the most notorious aspect of this movie... the fan service. Oh I don't mean a subtle Easter egg you probably wouldn't have caught the first time you watched this, I mean in your face references that the movie constantly throws at you as if Warner Bros was afraid the audience would forget what movie they are watching. Now what does this have to do with Wonder Woman you might ask? She's in the movie to be the cameo and fan service provider. That's literally all she does, she is just there to set up future movies (including her own) with some that didn't even get made like the planned Cyborg movie, now people will tell me that Marvel used to do this as well, but thst alone isn't true. Yes, marvel did have plot points that were meant to lead up to other things, but they were just things the films at the time didn't put much focus on because they knew the focus would and should be on the story and characters, Dawn of Justice is full of them and they are not in any way subtle about it at all and it overcrowds the narrative completely.
What also didn't help is that they were trying to replicate the success of the dark knight but without any understanding as to why it was so successful in the first place, from shock casting to overly drab and dull tone. The film was in other words, a complete disaster and that largely has to do with Warner Bros being incompetent dicks who got arrogant with trying to catch up to Marvel. Also didn't help was the poorly written climax with the mothers having the same name resolution, the mudball monster fight, and cheap attempt at sympathy by killing off Henry Cavill's Superman in the most unceremonious manner possible, only to resurrect him in the most extreme symbolic sense possible, what was the point? I don't know!
4.) A movie that would have been bad either way.
In 2014, Warner Bros announced that a few other movies were on the way along side Dawn of Justice, which included Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Suicide Squad. Right now we are talking about David Ayer's Suicide Squad 2016. A movie that would have been the answer to such films such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool movies, and the first trailer for it made it look like it would be a more darker take on that sort of thing, until Warner Bros decided to once again do what they do best after the disaster that was Batman vs Superman... edit out almost every edge of the final product, rewriting the dialogue to make it funnier, redo the entire story without David Ayer's involvement, add in additional scenes for fan service reasons, and making a crap climax of the movie with some of the worst computer generated imagery known to human kind. So it was a movie that was pretty much dead on arrival, reception wise, it wasn't any better, being at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was basically a Frankenstein's monster of other much better movie but without any of the effort put into it. It had some good casting choices like Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, but it was ultimately a complete waste of time. And let's not forget about Jared Leto's awful performance as The Joker which gave him a razzie nomination for worst supporting actor. It did in a bizzare move, win best make up and hairstyle in the academy awards, but maybe that due to Killer Croc actually looking pleasing to look at, but that's virtually all it has going for it.
An interesting fact about the movie is that during the releasethesnydercut movement, there were people who wanted to see David Ayer's cut of the movie, but never got to see the light of day... for good reason. Because David's cut of the film was revealed to be just as bad as the one we ended up getting. So I guess this was just a no win situation either way. It would take us five years for there to be a good suicide squad movie but that's an entirely different can of worms.
5.) So, whose the real Justice League? Justice and Jossitice: I am!
Despite the disaster that transpired with Batman vs Superman, Warner Bros was willing to give Zack Snyder one final chance with a Justice League movie that would feature Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. But unfortunately during post production, tragedy struck the Snyder family as Autumn Snyder took her life in late May early June 2017, forcing Zack to step down from directing duties. So what do you think the higher ups at Warner Bros do? Do they wait until Zack Snyder processes his grief during this difficult period and delay the film until time is necessary to release it? Nope... instead they do what they did best with the DC Universe, muck it up without the directors consent. In this case, replace Zack Snyder with Avengers director Joss Whedon to finish the project. And I think you know where this is leading up to, cgi removed mustaches, rewritten dialogue to make it funnier, flanderized characters, a complete joke of a villain, bad cgi, and focusing on a random Russian family too many times. Needless to say it was an unsalvageable disaster.
So much so that fans rallied around the world for the release of Zack Snyder's cut of the movie to be released, thus giving us the #releasethesnydercut movement. A movement that lasted for four years until Warner Bros decided to have Zack Snyder return to finish the film the way he intended it to be made. It was then release in 2021 on HBOMax to a slightly more positive reception. Which brings us to the debate of which movie does Warner Bros consider canon, is it the one in which Zack Snyder put his heart and soul into and people liked more? Or is it the one they butchered completely and had an egomaniacal jerkass be the butcher to do so? If your answer is the latter than congratulations, you automatically know how little Warner Bros cares about the DC universe and the fans.
Yes, to the surpise of no one Warner Bros says that the Josstice League is the official DCEU Justice League and not the one people perfered more. Which is sort of a big middle finger to the fans who campaigned heavily for Zack Snyder's cut of the film to be made and to people who used some of the money that was raised for it to go to worthy charity organizations that specialized in mental health and suicide prevention. Goes to show that Warner Brothers doesn't really care about making good movies with the DC universe and just want to make money, but that is Hollywood for you.
6.) Black Adam ruins everything
So along with butchering comic books and squandering potential in what can be possible with the DC universe, Warner Bros decided to take a chance on a long dormant project that was in development since 2007, a Black Adam movie starring the wrestler turned actor that you either love or hate, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. And given how well the Shazam movie turned out, it gave Warner Brothers the opportunity to make the Black Adam movie in the DCEU, and the movie itself was marketed like it was gonna be the movie that would save the DCEU and change the hierarchy of the franchise for good. And believe me when I say that it had everything going for it:
Over the top action sequences
A setting we don't normally get in a superhero movie
Characters that haven't been seen before on screen being presented
Snyder style action
Black Adam desecrating his enemies with a single touch
the climax of the movie is literally him fighting the DC Universe version of THE DEVIL.
This is gonna be the greatest superhero movie of all time and change the DCEU for the better....
and it tanked... HARD.
Barely making even at its budget, the film suffered greatly from being an overly ambitious and bloated movie that was pretty much ruined by The Rock's ultra unreasonable demands that pretty much drove the project to ruin completely. Which pretty much goes to show that a person like The Rock must have some restrictions when working with him and not be the one running the show. And this is also the last time we saw Henry Cavill in the role of Superman, in a post credits scene that was build up to a crossover but never saw the light of day. So Henry Cavill's last performance in this franchise was basically a post credits scene meant to be build up for something, but didn't happen because the movie tanked, theres a metaphor here somewhere.
7.) Gotta go fast (from this movie)
One of the films that was lazily built up in Dawn of Justice was a movie that would focus on Barry Allen/The Flash with Ezra "I'm not mentally all there" Miller in the role. This was a movie that was years in development and went through several writers, directors, and stories before finally getting it done with Andy Muschietti finally taking on the director role, and it was pretty much a complete disaster of a movie. But going beyond it's convoluted and nonsensical plot and having some of the absolute WORST visual effects that are worse than anything Marvel could ever hope to make (but that's another story for another day.) the film was pretty much a PR dumpster fire considering Ezra Miller's criminal acts and erratic behavior, the film was pretty much just doomed to fail, regardless of who the director or writer of the film was. I don't hold it against Andy Muschietti or Christina Hodson because they were just late additions to a movie that would have failed regardless and I know for a fact that they can redeem themselves with The Brave and the Bold, but we'll just have to wait and see for that.
Ok, so we've seen what happens when Warner Bros butchers movies that have potential to be good movies/green light movies that are dead on arrival. But what happens when you have movies that try to rise above what the franchise has become or even showcase potential silver linings take a bullet? Needless to say, four bullets?
8.) Four Horsemen of the second film syndrome
In June of 2017, Wonder Woman made her first on screen solo appearance that showcased what many people consider to be the best of the DCEU, showcasing a human side of the franchise that was rarely seen in previous installments, regardless it was a success and was highly praised. So naturally Warner Brothers honed on this and wanted to capitalize on its success, now we all know how she was misused and mistreated in Josstice League but let's ignore that and focus on the sequel to what many people consider to be a bright spark in the franchise. And what we ended up getting was a complete disaster that showcased that the first film might have been a fluke.
Wonder Woman 1984 is beyond awful. This film goes to showcase how Warner Bros can screw up something that was working as well. With a ridiculous plot, bad characterization of these characters, laughably bad villains, extremely overt messaging, and completely ruining Wonder Woman as a character, going as far as to make her possess the body and mind of a man to not only be her dead lover who sacrificed himself at the end of the first movie, but also sexually assaulted him without his consent. And Wonder Woman's constant mistreatment and misuse in the DCEU didn't stop there, with gratuitous disregard for her in other movies going forward being relegated to being a joke or just a cameo appearance for the hell of it.
I will always be disappointed that Wonder Woman finally got the chance to get cinematic exposure she was long over due for and yet we got a bad actress playing her and got incredibly underwhelming products because of it that just makes me want to watch the Lynda Carter show and Justice League unlimited and even the 2009 animated movie again, I mean even her small role in Space Jam a new legacy was better than these movies, you guys honest have no idea how had it was for me to give Space Jam a new legacy a compliment.
Shazam was released in 2019 to a slew of good reviews that showcased that Detective Comics movie can have a light hearted side to it and showcased that the franchise didn't have to take itself super seriously. So naturally a sequel was announced that was released in 2023, to mixed to negative reviews. Taking what people liked about the first movie and not expanding on it and making a ridiculous plot and didn't help that it was devoid of logic and was made up of contrivance and crap dialogue. That and it didn't help that the Shazam was depicted as an overgrown manchild and not the superhero that he's supposed to be but that's pretty much the character the Zachary Levi plays at this point. (Harold and the purple crayon anyone?)
Aquaman was released in late 2018 to mixed to positive reviews that showcased a superhero that isn't always taken seriously and made people take him seriously. So naturally a sequel was made and it showcased that once again, a bright spark in the franchise turned out to be a fluke. But by this point, nobody really cared and pretty much lost all interest and trust in Warner Bros produced Detective Comics movies. And yes, I will buy in the irony that the last official shot in the DCEU is Ocean Master eating a burger with a cockaroach on it, is unironically hilarious.
Now this last entry isn't really DCEU canon but it's still Warner Brothers produced and it showcases that Warner Bros can still screw up what was working, Joker 2. Joker itself is a pretty polarizing movie in of itself, but it's sequel is something that every one can agree that it is irredeemable and flat out awful. Taking what praised about the Joker movie and flat out ruining it and showcasing that once again Warner Bros can screw up anything that was working. Noticing a trend here?
Joker 2 was recieved so hellishly awful that it pretty much destroyed all hope in Warner Bros completely and it was the final nail in the coffin for Warner Bros produced Detective Comics movies. But by this point no one really cared anymore and were pretty much ready to move on to other things.
9.) A ray Gunn of hope there still may be
In 2022, Warner Bros had to face the inevitable and hit the reset button on the franchise completely and start over again. Except this time things would be different, instead of Warner Bros making the movies, Detective Comics stepped up and decided to make the movies and shows themselves and have more creative control over the projects than they have had over the DCEU, basically they pulled a "Fine, I'll do it myself." and created DC Studios. Now they need someone to run the film division and to lead the new canon. So who do they pick to lead the creative side of the DCU and help produce it? The answer was in the form of James Gunn and Peter Safran, who had previously scored hits with The Suicide Squad 2021 and it's Peacemaker spin-off and Blue Beetle. The fandom reaction was pretty much what you expected. People who were aware of James Gunn's work with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and his contributions to avengers infinity war and endgame and The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker season 1 were more than estatic and excited to see the new chapter in the Detective Comics cinematic journey... others were miffed by this.
On the one hand, it seemed like a slap in the face to people who wanted to see the Snyderverse grow and evolve to what it currently was. But from a logical standpoint this had to happen if they wanted to win back the audience and the trust of Detective Comics. So of course this meant the inevitable reset had to happen. So far we have gotten excellent content with stuff Creature Commandos season one, Superman 2025, and Peacemaker season 2. Probably going to showcase that when Warner Bros let's the filmmakers make the movies and the shows the way they should be made it turns out to be much better results. Like many people like me, I am graciously looking forward to seeing what the DCU has to offer next and what's in store. I really like that James Gunn is letting other characters and stories being developed and getting the spotlight for a change and hiring people who are genuine fans of the comics and understand them much better than people would like to give them credit for.
10.) Theres a great big beautiful tomorrow for the DCU
If there is anything we can obtain from this article, it's this... Warner Brothers was more responsible for why the DCEU failed in the long run. Zack Snyder wasn't the reason behind its shortcomings, it was just corporate theatrics that basically just got in the way of letting the DCEU achieve greatness. Which basically goes to showcase that people like the Warner Bros executives have no respect for any of the vast library of potential they have with the DC universe, and it's not like they aren't capable of having cinematic universes, they have before so why couldn't they do the same with the DC universe? I understand making cinematic universes is not exactly the most easy thing in the world, but it shouldn't have to be that much of a challenge either. The DC universe is boasting with great characters and storylines that could definitely make great material for movies, how come Warner Brothers couldn't see that?
That's not to say it didn't have its moments of significance or even good casting choices, it's just that there wasn't really much of a game plan and it was so poorly executed. The DCEU isn't as horrible as people make it out to be, it was just a failed experiment. So in most aspects, it was just to see what worked and what didn't. It would be easy just to write off the DCEU as just a failed MCU copycat, it's much more reasonable to say that Warner Brothers just didn't have the confidence to pull off the franchise.
Thats not to say I hate the brand, I like Detective Comics. There are things from the Detective Comics universe that I really like and enjoy. (The first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies, The Tim Burton Batman movies, Batman the animated series, Batman Beyond, Superman the animated series, Justice League Unlimited, Justice League the new frontier, Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman 2009, Batman Assault on Arkham, Suicide Squad hell to Pay, The Dark Knight returns, Harley Quinn, The Batman, the Penguin, The Suicide Squad 2021, Peacemaker seasons 1&2, Blue Beetle, Creature Commandos, Superman 2025, and some of the other animated movies.) It just really infuriates me that Warner Bros really doesn't seem to understand the true meaning of these characters and what they represent and what they stand for like Marvel does with their characters and stories.
A cinematic universe based on the DC Universe can work very well, it just requires the time, effort, and the right people to execute it well enough for it to work. Because if Warner Bros doesn't want to give us a cinematic universe that respects the source material while still telling its own narrative, then Detective Comics will always be the eternal joke.