It’s not exactly a secret that the DC Extended Universe has been struggling, all while its rival franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, continues to grow. But thankfully for Warner Bros., the writers of Avengers: Infinity War are here to offer them a little advice.
Aside from Infinity War, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have also worked on Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, as well as the fourth Avengers film that will come out next year, all alongside the directing team of Anthony and Joe Russo. Taking a break from all that, the two sat down with Kevin Smith on his Youtube show Fat Man on Batman.
Coming near the end of the episode, they were asked how they would fix the DCEU, if given the chance. To Markus, the issue lies in not relying too much on just big names like Batman and Superman. He notes that the MCU has turned many B-list heroes into household names, and that DC Comics has a large roster that they can draw on.
To be fair, it looks as if Warner Bros. is already taking this advice—its next movie (coming out December 21) focuses on Aquaman, a character whose supposed uselessness has long been memetic, but who fans are at least tentatively interested in after Justice League. After that comes Shazam on April 5, 2019, starring a character with a cult following but not much exposure among non-comic fans.
As for McFeely, he followed up on something that Markus said and advised Warner Bros. to stop greenlighting every new idea; they should focus on making one good movie and then building on that, rather than trying to create a whole shared universe at once.
“To quote Justice League, ‘save one person,'” he quipped, using one of Batman’s lines from that film.
Again, this seems to be something that has occurred to Warner Bros. already—moving forward, there is indication that they plan to focus more on solo films rather than rapid worldbuilding, which is one criticism they got for movies like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As far as we know, neither Aquaman nor Shazam will focus other heroes, hopefully allowing those characters to really breathe and then, maybe, do crossovers later.
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