Such a good way to put it. I remember friends way back when that were into Marvel but had to be convinced when they got to Ant-Man or Guardians that they weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. By phase 4, you kinda got to that "why is Agatha getting a show" territory, and people could take it or leave it. Not must-see content anymore.

With every new DCU project, my brain has that same "that's aight" instinct as some of those phase 4/5/6 announcements. They're basically launching a universe with Ironheart, Marvel Zombies and Morbius.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't absolutely crush it, I think we're looking at Venomverse 2.0. That, or all these random projects have to crush it. But Gorilla Grodd isn't going to save this thing.

This was my only real complaint with Supergirl. The movie itself was entertaining enough for a couple of hours, but it's not a movie anyone asked for. It's akin to the MCU following up Iron Man with Black Widow.

rhutton125 said:

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Such a good way to put it. I remember friends way back when that were into Marvel but had to be convinced when they got to Ant-Man or Guardians that they weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. By phase 4, you kinda got to that "why is Agatha getting a show" territory, and people could take it or leave it. Not must-see content anymore.

With every new DCU project, my brain has that same "that's aight" instinct as some of those phase 4/5/6 announcements. They're basically launching a universe with Ironheart, Marvel Zombies and Morbius.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't absolutely crush it, I think we're looking at Venomverse 2.0. That, or all these random projects have to crush it. But Gorilla Grodd isn't going to save this thing.

---

Man of Tomorrow will be the next Gunn project we see and it def won't crush it. That'll be the last we see of Gunn's DCU after he gets let go, or rather, "decides to leave" for some reason that we'll all know is b.s.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't crush it with film's first outing of Brainiac, then yep, it's time for him to be shown the door.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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This was my only real complaint with Supergirl. The movie itself was entertaining enough for a couple of hours, but it's not a movie anyone asked for. It's akin to the MCU following up Iron Man with Black Widow.

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Was anyone asking for Iron Man?

Aggie_Journalist said:

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Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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This was my only real complaint with Supergirl. The movie itself was entertaining enough for a couple of hours, but it's not a movie anyone asked for. It's akin to the MCU following up Iron Man with Black Widow.

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Was anyone asking for Iron Man?

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Who knows, that was nearly 20 years ago. Iron Man is an "A list" superhero though, main character energy as the youth says. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, and a few others are big enough to have stand alone films. Supergirl is not in that category, she is a side character. People don't turn on the game to watch the punter.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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rhutton125 said:

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Such a good way to put it. I remember friends way back when that were into Marvel but had to be convinced when they got to Ant-Man or Guardians that they weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. By phase 4, you kinda got to that "why is Agatha getting a show" territory, and people could take it or leave it. Not must-see content anymore.

With every new DCU project, my brain has that same "that's aight" instinct as some of those phase 4/5/6 announcements. They're basically launching a universe with Ironheart, Marvel Zombies and Morbius.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't absolutely crush it, I think we're looking at Venomverse 2.0. That, or all these random projects have to crush it. But Gorilla Grodd isn't going to save this thing.

---

Man of Tomorrow will be the next Gunn project we see and it def won't crush it. That'll be the last we see of Gunn's DCU after he gets let go, or rather, "decides to leave" for some reason that we'll all know is b.s.

---

Let's say this happens. And I'm not at all saying it won't, as it's way more likely now than it was just a couple months ago.

What does Paramount / Warner Bros / DC actually do next?

Start over yet AGAIN with a third new iteration in a decade? If so, are fans even going to show up?

Go back to the Snyder-verse with an aging Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, etc?

Because I honestly don't know what the answer would be.

TCTTS said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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rhutton125 said:

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Such a good way to put it. I remember friends way back when that were into Marvel but had to be convinced when they got to Ant-Man or Guardians that they weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. By phase 4, you kinda got to that "why is Agatha getting a show" territory, and people could take it or leave it. Not must-see content anymore.

With every new DCU project, my brain has that same "that's aight" instinct as some of those phase 4/5/6 announcements. They're basically launching a universe with Ironheart, Marvel Zombies and Morbius.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't absolutely crush it, I think we're looking at Venomverse 2.0. That, or all these random projects have to crush it. But Gorilla Grodd isn't going to save this thing.

---

Man of Tomorrow will be the next Gunn project we see and it def won't crush it. That'll be the last we see of Gunn's DCU after he gets let go, or rather, "decides to leave" for some reason that we'll all know is b.s.

---

Let's say this happens. And I'm not at all saying it won't, as it's way more likely now than it was just a couple months ago.

What does Paramount / Warner Bros / DC actually do next?

Start over yet AGAIN with a third new iteration in a decade? If so, are fans even going to show up?

Go back to the Snyder-verse with an aging Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, etc?

Because I honestly don't know what the answer would be.

---

Make a deal with Disney for a DC/Marvel crossover event.

You know what? That's not a bad idea.

2027 could conceivably see Man of Tomorrow bomb, and thus Gunn get the boot.

It will also see Avengers: Secret Wars, which is rumored to basically kill the multiverse and effectively "reboot" the MCU to a degree. Meaning there would be an opportunity to then license all the DC characters to Marvel and go all-in on a brand new mega-verse.

It'll never happen, but it's probably the only thing that would keep superheroes relevant on the big screen.

Thank you for knowing this. People often act like Marvel had scraps, and while it's true that X-Men and Spider-Man are on their own echelon (along with Batman), Iron Man and Captain America had their own comics consistently since the 60s. That means monthly comics for 50 years, pretty much without pause (to my knowledge).

So Iron Man may not have been a household name, but he's a comics mainstay. Comics royalty even. I haven't read any DC comics but I don't know who the hell Mr Terrific is (besides the name), so 98% of households won't either. (2% allotted for big DC fans and those who have watched the cartoons, if he ever showed up there)

And that, I think, is when you really run into superhero fatigue, when every commercial and trailer also has to educate the audience on what this is and why it's different or why they should care. It's an uphill battle.

Go full Justice League already; no origin stories, no "let's team up crap. Put them all out there and have a couple of films with them working 2-3 plot lines against the most important villains there are. Get out the Justice League / JL Unlimited cartoon scripts and upgrade.

Give me the Thangarians trying to take over Earth and Hawkgirl deciding what side's on; give me Braniac taking over Luthor and the Flash saving the day; the Savage Time, and give me the bad guys teaming up with the JL to fight Darkseid in the final showdown.

It still strikes me as both impressive for animation and humiliating for live action that the 2 best moments that really capture what it means to be a a superhero to come out of DC in the last 25 years are both from cartoons that came out 20 years ago.

TCTTS said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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rhutton125 said:

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Such a good way to put it. I remember friends way back when that were into Marvel but had to be convinced when they got to Ant-Man or Guardians that they weren't scraping the bottom of the barrel. By phase 4, you kinda got to that "why is Agatha getting a show" territory, and people could take it or leave it. Not must-see content anymore.

With every new DCU project, my brain has that same "that's aight" instinct as some of those phase 4/5/6 announcements. They're basically launching a universe with Ironheart, Marvel Zombies and Morbius.

If Man of Tomorrow doesn't absolutely crush it, I think we're looking at Venomverse 2.0. That, or all these random projects have to crush it. But Gorilla Grodd isn't going to save this thing.

---

Man of Tomorrow will be the next Gunn project we see and it def won't crush it. That'll be the last we see of Gunn's DCU after he gets let go, or rather, "decides to leave" for some reason that we'll all know is b.s.

---

Let's say this happens. And I'm not at all saying it won't, as it's way more likely now than it was just a couple months ago.

What does Paramount / Warner Bros / DC actually do next?

Start over yet AGAIN with a third new iteration in a decade? If so, are fans even going to show up?

Go back to the Snyder-verse with an aging Cavill, Affleck, Gadot, etc?

Because I honestly don't know what the answer would be.

---

Lol, well, this will NEVER happen because you know, money, but in a perfect world, both DC and Marvel get put on the shelf for at least five if not ten years. The DC needs this break even more than Marvel, but it would do both franchises good if we're being honest.

In reality? DC steps back, takes 2-3 years to really put together a good cohesive game plan, putting out ONLY their animated stuff, which has always been kept separate anyway. Then start out on TV only. Quality shows, with the quality writing and production value of Peacemaker and Lanterns but make it your main guys....Superman, Batman, WW, Green Lantern, etc. Build up a dedicated fanbase and lightly connected world that after a couple of seasons build-up and tension suddenly explodes onto the big screen with a Justice League movie. After that, it continues primarily on TV with the shows, and introducing third-tier characters like Blue Beetle, with a big movie once every year or two.

This was actually the plan circa 2006/2007 or so. Wolfgang Peterson was coming off of Troy, had an full script, and cast an entire Justice League movie that was meant to jumpstart a new universe. I can't remember the whole cast, only that Arnie Hammer was Bruce Wayne and Adam Brody was the Flash. But Nolan was writing a little movie called The Dark Knight at the time, didn't want to compete with a whole other universe (very reminiscent of the Reeves/Gunn dynamic now), and apparently had the whole thing killed.

CharleyKerfeld said:

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Go full Justice League already; no origin stories, no "let's team up crap. Put them all out there and have a couple of films with them working 2-3 plot lines against the most important villains there are. Get out the Justice League / JL Unlimited cartoon scripts and upgrade.

Give me the Thangarians trying to take over Earth and Hawkgirl deciding what side's on; give me Braniac taking over Luthor and the Flash saving the day; the Savage Time, and give me the bad guys teaming up with the JL to fight Darkseid in the final showdown.

It still strikes me as both impressive for animation and humiliating for live action that the 2 best moments that really capture what it means to be a a superhero to come out of DC in the last 25 years are both from cartoons that came out 20 years ago.

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I just don't think you can jump right into a world of Hawkman and Martian Manhunter for the general public. You and me and some others on this board? Sure, but not the general audience.

The biggest problem is that DC didn't learn from their mistakes.

The first time around Marvel got the jump and did a near flawless job building into Avengers. They gave us good to great movies that were a lot of fun, humorous, and created a coherent universe that gave them room to explore some lesser characters and somewhat different genres in films that ended up being outstanding. Then they got the rights to Spidey back, finally did it right, and gave us one of the biggest cinematic events in history in Infinity War/Endgame.

DC wanted to do the same after Nolan's Batman series, but they skipped the early steps. A few of the films were solid individually, but as a whole they seemed to go dark tonally just to differentiate themselves from the MCU; there was no coherent philosophy or point of view and they didn't build the universe in a way that got viewers invested. They tried to force more "universe" films that didn't really work, had a few genuinely terrible ones (how WW1984 went that far off the rails I will never understand), and ended up rebooting.

Now we've got the new DCU, and while I really enjoyed Superman (largely for the performances), moving forward there are again seems to be no coherent strategy. A lot of the planned content is leveraging characters a lot of people don't know or care about, and with things like the upcoming "other" Batman it feels like their universe is going to end up even more fragmented than before.

Sincerely not being a smartass, but I think we all agree on your points. The question is, how do they right the ship at this point?

Man… I'd start by pulling the plug on Grodd/Olson, Mr Terrific, any of these totally obscure characters and properties. Do your weird Batman-and-son, Superman 2, then let audience demand determine what comes next.

I guess I really should watch Superman. I'm fine with an already-established universe with various heroes and villains but if they're just being teed up for spinoffs then it's the same paper-thin, as-fast-as-possible ramp-up as BvS had with Batman watching JL footage via email attachments.

If it were me, I'd soft reboot (re-reboot?) around Corenswet.

That guy is a star.

I agree on Corenswet, he's got so much natural charisma. He's been a great Clark Kent, I'm just afraid Gunn will never let him be a true Superman (I'm sure you know what I mean about the difference between those two personalities).