The future of the DC Extended Universe - EDITORIAL

With San Diego Comic Con arriving in the next few weeks, inevitably with plenty of cool movie and TV news to share around (not to mention my personal favourite...trailers!) I thought I'd cover a topic that interests me greatly - the future of DC's Extended Universe.
The first thing to note is that DC has gone on a major re-brand over the past few months with a new logo they seem determined to slap all over their products similar to the Marvel logo - something I was expecting with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice but apparently not. I don't mind this. It makes sense from a business sense of view and I personally prefer the new DC logo as something to ingrain in peoples' minds. It's simple and easy to recognize.
With Dawn of Justice seemingly a bit of a flop though, WB and DC Films (no longer just DC Entertainment) are betting all their chips on Suicide Squad becoming a huge hit. Now, I think/hope that the movie will become a big hit with fans and people like myself who like the genre as a whole, but to a general audience it might mean very little. I'm also not sure what a successful Suicide Squad film looks like to Warner Bros. Does it need to cross the $1 billion mark? If so, they're going to be sorely disappointed. The movie would firstly need to be loved by all audiences and secondly somehow encourage more people to see that then the last two out-there comic book movies put together - in this case Deadpool and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, both of which made around $750 million. Personally, I'd reckon around that much for Suicide Squad if it's popular. If not, I don't think it'll make much at all. Even surefire hits this year haven't done as well as expected - X-Men: Apocalypse currently sits at around $500 million and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn't even get to $900 million (it needed $1 billion to actually be successful in WB's eyes). So, fingers crossed that WB haven't spent much more than $150 million on Suicide Squad and have actually made a generally great film. That would be a good start.
Next year, however, DC Films releases Wonder Woman - the fist big screen live action appearance of the character in her 75 year history. With Patty Jenkins directing and Gal Gadot starring, I'm not sure how this film can go wrong. It sounds like a passion project for the most part, despite its rocky road in pre-production. It's got a good cast - and Chris Pine - and I'm hoping we'll see a first trailer at SDCC which showcases an awesome movie but also a fun one. It is Wonder Woman after all. But, how much are WB riding on that one? Again, I'd hope around $150 million production budget to ensure that it earns enough money back; maybe a $600-700 million box office? I think it all depends on if the movie looks good and actually is good - at least in the eyes of everyday moviegoers.
Then we get DC Films' first proper outing with the new changes in place in Justice League - a movie that sounds very similar to The Avengers in almost every aspect, albeit with the notable difference of a director who I still can't decide if I like. Apparently its lighter, not necessarily fluffier, but certainly with more humour, brighter colours and a general idea of "we need to make a $1.5 billion movie now guys, make Justice League fun for all the family!!!" With this mission statement, you'd figure that firing Zack Snyder makes sense, or at least getting someone to rewrite the script. Well, we get neither. I'd like to be optimistic but it isn't looking as good as WB wants it to. But at least the tonal shift should work better.
So, yeah - those are my thoughts on DC's upcoming motion pictures. In a nutshell, I'm cautiously optimistic, but there's just no consistency with these movies other than that they rely on sequel set-up too much, and change their minds on what they want the sequel to be like based on criticism from the last movie.

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