Don’t forget the two different Suicide Squad movies (the latter setting up Gunn and Safran’s run) and Black Adam, with the Rock trying to bluff his way into having his own cinematic universe.
A lot of that was just that the non-sequels were already in development and the more successful ones then got sequels.
But that’s part of the problem. Each saddled the next guy with the existing stuff, which meant a harder time setting up something new as they had to either write off hundreds of millions already spent (which David Zazlav did actually eventually do for some movies and series as tax writeoffs, notably the Batgirl movie) or extending what was already there.
Gunn and Safran saw this immediately but ultimately didn’t find a good solution and couldn’t backfill with their own stuff fast enough to satisfy the pointy haired boss of the week
For all its faults, the MCU has managed to create a reasonably consistent and interconnected yet thematically diverse universe for 18 years.
One of the problems with DC, whether it’s the Snyderverse, the Gunnverse, and all the miscellaneous crap is there really isn’t a reason for ANY of it to be shared. Penguin was interesting as a Batman spinoff. The first Joker film was also successful. But to be honest, without Batman in them, they might as well be some random Martin Scorscse crime film knockoff.
Plus how many freakin Batmans (Batmen) do I need in my lifetime?
Supergirl was ok as a sort of True Grit meets Furiosa meets John Wick (or Ballerina perhaps) knockoff. But same problem with Batman. How many stories do I need about El family?
And DC never came up with a “Thanos” or even an “Ultron” bad guy who was both charismatic and menacing enough to unite Earth’s mightiest heroes across multiple films and leave lasting repercussions for years that just sort of naturally fit into the universe. Like VisionQuest, Agatha All Along, WandaVision, Civil War, Doctor Strange 2, and like every other episode of What If all ties back to Age of Ultron and most people don’t even really like that movie!
Because they didn’t veer straight into stuff like Guardians of the Galaxy or WandaVision until a solid foundation was set up and people were already invested in the shared world.
That’s another thing anybody taking over won’t have - time.
The MCU started slowly by modern standards and there was a learning curve. These days, there wouldn’t be shows on ABC or Netflix. And it’s less likely there’s a COVID dumping of streaming shows.
The folks at Warner seem to want everything, including an enthusiastic audience, set up and going right off the bat, instead of 5 years down the road.
It always seemed to me Marvel had been built since the 60s as a “universe”, one guy was editing everything, if he wanted the Hulk to meet Daredevil, well, the Hulk met Daredevil. DC’s characters were all walled off in their own editorial fiefdoms, for years. There was no way Sugar and Spike were going to team up with… oh, say, Jonah Hex, until the 80s at least. I liked what Gunn was doing, the movies had solid, entertaining stories, and you didn’t need to know the full backstories of Peacemaker or Hawkgirl or Lobo to enjoy them. I don’t think we need a big shared universe where everything ties into everything else, that’s what’s been hampering Marvel content for a while. Of course their big event film of the year is absolutely a big universe wide crossover, I predict it will sell a lot of tickets and Warners/Skydance will keep on chasing that trend.
Being in a coherent backstoried universe helps ground the individual stories, but everything interconnecting and being universally existential boxes you in, and gets less interesting. T
It is why in the Star Wars universe the best stuff has been the stories like Andor, which connect, but the connection is not the big point.
Penguin was perfect. I am still catching up with Lanterns but it is going fine too. Allusions to the rest of the universe. Consistent with it. But it doesn’t need it.
I think the big shared universe is interesting in cases like Star Wars or even the MCU where you have this big, complex universe with it’s own history and events and whatnot which serve as a backdrop for the stories you want to focus on. There’s a million Star Wars stories you can tell just from what takes place from when we meet Luke until when the Death Star II explodes over Endor, before even getting into the events leading up to the Clone Wars, the transition from Republic to Empire, and the aftermath of the Empire’s collapse.
MCU and DC are a bit tougher as ostensibly they take place in a recognizable version of our Universe on Earth. So every time a supervillain blows up a building or aliens attack a city, that’s going to be at least as culturally impactful as a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor event.
Just in NYC alone, whenever there’s an incident of any kind, it’s going to be like "Where are the Avengers? Where are the X-Men? Where’s Daredevil? Is Spiderman still in the Sonyverse? Is Ms Marvel going to take the PATH over from Jersey City?
Reading the Wikipedia article on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s fascinating to see how the whole thing started in 2008 with the first Iron Man film (for which Robert Downey Jr received only $500,000), and has films planned out until 2028.
But looking at the films already released, many stand alone so it’s not as if it’s all one giant story line. That sort of thing ought to be possible in the DC Comics world.
Should be possible but no Warner head, old or new, has shown the patience for that. They want the big team-up movies and guaranteed profits ASAP, despite having failed spectacularly at that continuously for nearly the last decade.
Gunn’s planned, slower ramp-up and focus on less well known characters was apparently not to their tastes.
Purchasing a Hollywood studio is one of the traditional ways for men to relieve themselves of too much money and ego. They’ll eventually get tired of paying a lot of money to be mocked by the populace.
Superhero movies like the DC Studio films succeed globally because they’re appealing to everyone, including the billions who are not Christian. So even if this guy was making Christian movies previously I doubt that will be the case for the DCU.
This has partly always been my trouble with the MCU, and not because the Sony (Spidey), Universal (Hulk), Netflix (Daredevil) or Fox (X-men/Fantastic Four) were missing. All of those universes also suffered from the same thing (no X-men in FF world).
Most superhero movies in the Marvel world stand alone unless there’s a crossover, or the end credits. It 's the nature of the hero bit, they’re the only one. And Marvel being the quantity, not quality, comics, that became increasingly weird. DCU2 at least seemed to have mention and basic background crossover (the Justice Gang in Superman, Peacemaker ranting about other heroes, trying to join JG). But it in a Marvel universe the first crossover was like “OMG I’ve never heard of the 20 foot high green monster before. Or norse god who’s saved the world twice”.
I guess we forget that the crossovers were originally just to sell comics. They wanted Spidey fans to read a less popular comic, so they crossed it over.
But moving forward into a Christian DC universe, won’t Superman and Jesus be somewhat problematic?
How was Darksied not a “monster of the week” villain?
Thanos was this lingering behind the scenes menace from early in the MCU, it took two Avengers films to defeat him and the impact of his “blip” was felt in the MCU even long after it was reversed.
We never heard of Darksied until he showed up in whatever cut of whatever film and then he was never spoken of again after his defeat.
In fact that’s my concern with Avengers Doomsday. Like who the hell is Dr Doom? I mean we all know who he is from the comics, but he was never anyone in the MCU.
