When Marvel Studios was at the height of their building their Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner Bros. was looking to play catch-up real fast with their DC properties. They wanted to build their own superhero cinematic universe and they wanted to do it fast.
That universe launched with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and things escalated pretty quickly from there with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The reason for such a big jump was the urgency to catch up to what Marvel was doing.
Man of Steel writer David Goyer recently talked about WB’s plan to build their own DC Cinematic Universe and how crazy it was. He told the Happy Sad Confused podcast:
“I know the pressure we were getting from Warner Bros., which was, ‘We need our MCU! We need our MCU!’ And I was like let’s not run before we walk. The other thing that was difficult at the time was there was this revolving door of executives at Warner Bros. and DC. Every 18 months someone new would come in. We were just getting whiplash. Every new person was like, ‘We’re going to go bigger!’”
You can see how the studio was starting the whole thing off on the wrong foot. None of the executives had any patience. Goyer went on to say:
“I remember at one point the person running Warner Bros. at the time had this release that pitched the next 20 movies over the next 10 years. But none of them had been written yet! It was crazy how much architecture was being built on air… This is not how you build a house.”
That is why the DCEU ultimately failed. They were building it in all the wrong ways. Man of Steel was a great start and then they lost it once they jumped right into Batman v Superman. Goyer went on to say that they should’ve made Man of Steel 2 before Batman v Superman. When asked about that he said, “Yeah, I think so. There was and but it’s would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.”
I would take things even further and say there should’ve been standalone films for Batman and Wonder Woman before Batman v Superman. You’ve got to build the story and characters and earn the story that Snyder wanted to tell in Batman v Superman.
Had the WB executives taken their time and been patient with these films and the process of world-building and storytelling, the DC Cinematic Universe would’ve had a better chance of being a huge success!
When Marvel Studios was at the height of their building their Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner Bros. was looking to play catch-up real fast with their DC properties. They wanted to build their own superhero cinematic universe and they wanted to do it fast. That universe launched with Zack Snyde Read More