Part 1.5, because I want part 2 to be when I finally see all the remaining DCEU movies, and rank them.
I've got 3 to go out of the 4.
Anyway, so far, I've only talked about the DCEU movies Warners/DC actually did make.
They managed not to make way more than they did.
I'm going to go ahead, and put my final conclusion up here.
For cinematic universes, you need a Kevin Feige.
If you don't have a King, then all the little Dukes and Duchesses, and Barons and Baronesses, fight over their little fiefdoms.
This is exactly what happened with DC.
Just like an individual movie needs a director, a cinematic universe needs an uber-producer.
Cinematic universes are basically giant TV shows. TV shows need a Gene Roddenberry.
Without a Gene Roddenberry to steer, you end up with the final season of original Rosanne.
Or the first and last season of reboot Rosanne before it became "The Connors" under Sarah Gilbert.
I have a feeling James Gunn DC will be Connors.
Didn't think you'd ever see James Gunn compared to Sarah Gilbert, did you?
That's what I'm here for!
Anyhoo!
Here's all those.
In no particular order.
Justice League: Dark
Said it all here...
JLD are the darker magical characters as a team.
Plus Batman, cuz DC animated treats Batman like a fancy restaurant does cilantro.
I think Batman's atheist but raised Episcopalian if I remember.
So, naturally, he scoffs at magic.
Actually makes for a good dynamic.
There was supposed to be a live-action of this by Guillermo Del Toro, but it never solidified.
You're never gonna see it, so just watch this instead.
Yep, just watch the animated one, and you're good.
Justice League 2
Also said here...
JL-classic, JL-Dark, Teen Titans, and Suicide Squad fight Darkseid in the ultimate battle.
This is totally where Snyder's Justice League 2 was going.
Look, hash-taggers, Snyder has moved on, he doesn't want to put up with Warner's shit anymore, let it go. Just watch this. This is JL2.
Zack Snyder was the closest thing DCEU had to a Feige, and articles are coming out about shady shit he supposedly did to hold on to his power.
But, without him, it was fucking chaos.
So, I dunno, maybe better Nurse Ratched than the inmates take over the asylum.
Deathstroke solo movie
Yep, this was supposed to be a thing.
Joe Manganiello tried to head-butt this into being with pure willpower.
Deadshot solo movie
And this was also supposed to be a thing.
Will Smith was supposed to get a whole fiefdom off it too.
Last thing Will Smith needs is a fucking DC fiefdom.
Holy shit.
Wonder Woman 3
Star Wars and DC both did Patty Jenkins dirty.
Of all the fiefdom contenders, Patty Jenkins was the only one who deserved a fiefdom.
And okay, maybe Margot Robbie.
But Jenkins didn't even get one.
She got one great movie, one clunky one, and a kick in the pants.
Well, at least we got the character in 6 movies before she got rebooted away.
Man Of Steel 2
Poor Henry Cavill was done dirtiest by all of this.
Superman is DC's flagship character, and Henry didn't even get any fiefdom power from it.
They batted him around like a ping-pong ball.
And we only got his Superman in 4 of the movies.
Black Adam 2
This was a possibility for all of 5 seconds until the Rotten Tomatoes score and box-office receipts rolled in.
Ouch.
Dwayne Johnson was the worst offender for a Duke that wanted to be King.
Oh, he wanted to do nice things with the King power, I don't fault him for that.
He brought Henry Cavill back one last time.
He wouldn't have been an evil ruler.
But, a high powered movie star strutting in with the arrogance to think he could be Kevin Feige by sheer force of will,....ssss...yeeaah...
Well, it's not a complete delusion, he did it with the Fast & Furious movies.
DC is a different beast though.
I've heard Black Adam is bad, but I heard it about Wonder Woman '84, and I still found things to enjoy about it even though I rank it low overall.
I'm still scientifically curious to see it.
Gotham City Sirens
A team-up of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman.
They kept assuring us it was coming, but they refused to even cast their Ivy and Catwoman.
Then it mutated into a Harley vs Joker movie.
Then it mutated into a romance team-up of just Harley & Ivy.
All of which had Margot Robbie as a producer.
And I'm sure it/they would have been good flicks.
Robbie's a good producer who does her homework.
Anyway! Kiss any variation on this goodbye.
Instead, just watch the Harley animated series.
The show does every single thing these movies would have done.
Batgirl
It was actually made, and was shelved for a fucking tax write-off.
A literal fucking crime.
Jayzus.
My only ray of hope, is that Leslie Grace comes back as Batgirl for "The Brave And The Bold" in the Gunn-verse.
The Trench
Remember the trench monsters in "Aquaman"?
A whole movie of just that.
Yep, they tried to keep James Wan around by giving him a horror spinoff fiefdom.
They were handing out fiefdoms like candy.
The New Gods
To be directed by Ava Duvernay.
Eh, this would have just been DC's "Eternals".
"Eternals" already feels like a Snyder-verse movie shoved into the MCU.
DC didn't need to copy it.
Blackhawk
To be directed by Stephen Spielberg!!
Yeah, but would we have gotten "Saving Private Ryan" Spielberg, or "Lost World: Jurassic Park 2" Spielberg? Y'know?
Not a superpowers thing, but a period piece about a team of WWII fighter aces.
They are a DC comic though.
Spielberg loves his WWII stuff, so I can see how they roped him in.
In hindsight, this was never going to happen.
This was just executive publicity chess.
Green Lantern Corps
Like with the Gotham City Sirens/Harley-Ivy movie, they kept saying it was coming real soon, but they refused to even cast their guy.
When they had a hard time getting solo-Flash off the ground, there was brief talk of making it a Flash/Green Lantern team-up.
Finally, "Crisis On Infinite Earths" just went ahead and canonized the Ryan Reynolds one.
It's canon, watch it.
Cyborg
This kept getting kicked down the road like the Harley/Ivy and Green Lantern movies, but Ray Fisher killed the last microscopic chances of it by tattling on Joss Whedon.
Well, fuck it, it needed doing.
As with Green Lantern, when they had trouble getting solo-Flash off the ground, they tried to make Cyborg a Flash team-up movie too.
Anyway, just watch Doom Patrol, you get plenty of Cyborg in that.
Solo Batfleck
Yep, Ben Affleck was supposed to write, direct, and star.
His emotional and substance problems got in the way.
You can be the guy who plays The Goddamned Batman, and still have troubles.
Capitalistic success is not the battlefield where beating your demons is done.
America's big fat brainwash ad campaign of "winners and losers" can go fuck itself.
Anyway, this was overhauled so much, it basically turned into "The Batman".
And we got Affleck back one last time in "The Flash".
Legion Of Superheroes
This was an idea for all of 5 seconds.
I never heard any real development on it.
Director, writer, casting, nothing.
Sandman
With Joseph Gordon-Levitt producing, writing, directing, and starring.
But, his fiefdom wasn't official, he was trying to will it into being like Dwayne Johnson.
Kinda. Sorta.
After having read and collected the comics, and seen the first season of the show, there's no fucking way they could cram it even into a trilogy of movies.
There's just no fucking way.
Maaayybe...book 1, for movie 1, book 4 for movie 2, and then mash book 9 and 10 into the last movie.
Maybe....
But you have to gut so much.
No, it just has to be a show.
And finally....
Zatanna
Plastic Man
Nightwing
Metal Men
Static Shock
Hourman
Lobo
The Wonder Twins
Batman Beyond
Constantine 2
Elseworlds Black Superman
Another Elseworlds Black Superman
I lump all these together without individual commentary, because they really only got as far as the title and/or description.
The only reason "Legion Of Superheroes" isn't lumped in here, is at least that was part of the original slate of post-Justice League movies.
I don't know how they were supposed to make all these fucking movies.
They'd still be making them!
At least Marvel was pounding them out 3 a year at one point.
DC never cranked it up to that speed.
At maximum 3-a-year speed, and with no covid, or inflation, or Ukraine vs Russia, or union strikes, they'd JUST be getting done!
No, there's no way in Hell they really thought they were making all of these.
A lot of this was throwing darts at the wall.
And full circle to what I said up top, this is why cinematic universes have to be kingships.
Otherwise it's a fiefdom war, and a fucking mess.
An elementary school food fight level mess.
That poor James Gunn has to mop up now.
Well, the alternative is let it turn green and stinky, and attract flies.
The bright side; as fans, we still got some good movies, and the shows and animated flicks made up the deficit.
The behind-the-scenes drama can go take a flying leap.
Anyway, that's all of that.
Let's look forward to the Gunn era being brighter.
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