Ah, the age old question, what do we do with the mess that is, the DC Extended Universe?

According to recent news Warner Bros. Entertainment appears to have finally given up on their shared universe concept for DC Comics. Instead announcing the films currently in production will be stand alone and not part of any shared continuity akin to what Marvel and Disney are doing. In a nutshell, they're throwing in the towel with making a cinematic universe (at least in the movie front). No doubt Justice League being a near box office bomb was the rock that finally broke their confidence to the ground.

I don't think this is actually the right approach for Warner Bros. to have here. The concept of a DC Extended Universe being designed in a similar fashion to the MCU is a sound idea and clearly the success of the Arrowverse has strongly proven fans are willing to accept such an idea if presented properly. Warner Bros. just has to learn from their mistakes, lick their wounds, and build these movies on a solid foundation & maintain that while going forward.

Keep Wonder Woman

Even though almost every DCEU film and decision has been panned so far, there's one glimmering light of hope that they need to hold onto, Wonder Woman. Unlike every other film before (and after) it, Wonder Woman received near universal praise from critics and fans everywhere. Most importantly to the WB bureaucrats, it made a crap ton of money during its run. Not to mention the franchise is based on a hero with loads of source material and household recognition. Wonder Woman is everything the DCEU wanted to do and they need to capitalize on that. The unfortunate problem though is the movie is surrounded by a bunch of mediocre to downright terrible spinoffs that Warner Bros. needs to trim off if they're going to keep Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman in an universe-wide reboot.

Luckily, Wonder Woman is a very stand alone story. Barring consistent casting in Dawn of Justice & Justice League, the only strong connection this movie has to the greater DCEU was the note from Bruce Wayne at the beginning. Which doesn't have to be from Batfleck or have anything to do with her helping him fight Doomsday.

What DC should do is create a new DC Extended Universe and have Wonder Woman be the first movie. It is the perfect, solid foundation to build the rest of the universe around and the small connections it has to the other lesser received films can be dismissed or retconned to be part of something else entirely.

Wonder Woman is a lucrative franchise and it would be a shame if it had to get sucked into the Black Hole of rebootdom just because the other films it came bundled with weren't as popular. Not to mention having to recreate another smash hit to get people interested in the new cinematic universe would be much easier said then done.

Keep Shazam! & Aquaman

Aquaman is slated to come out December this year and Shazam! April 2019. If the New DCEU starts with 2017's Wonder Woman, I think having both these upcoming movies as part of the new universe would work too. I know, Jason Momoa's Aquaman isn't very comic accurate but I still have faith this movie has the potential to at least be decent. James Wan is a great director, and underwater Atlantis themed stories are a really fresh and interesting direction for a comic book adaptation. Like Wonder Woman, I doubt Warner Bros. after Justice League's financial stumble will reference the other movies much, meaning this will be really easy to make self-contained and separate from the other failures.

Shazam! isn't filming yet, but the movie looks promising! The casting of Zachary Levi and Asher Angel as Billy Batson/Captain Marvel respectively is great. The Shazam lore is very underrated and if explored with the same passion as Wonder Woman and (hopefully) Aquaman can easily make an excellent film trilogy and a new star for Warner Bros. to show off. He was very popular back when Fawcett Comics had him before dropping out of the lime light, a good movie could rejuvenate public interest. It would be a missed opportunity if the movie got left out of a New DCEU slate.

Reboot Batman and The Flash

Even though Superman and The Justice League have been unfortunately tarnished, Batman hasn't had a solo outing in the DCEU, giving the perfect opportunity to deliver the Matt Reeves one late 2019, taking place 100% in the new DCEU with an almost completely new cast.

I say "almost completely new" since some casting such as J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn were actually pretty decent. But Affleck and Irons don't seem interested in Batman anymore. Besides, even though there was no stand alone film the DCEU's Batman mythology was a mess. With Suicide Squad, a Bruce Wayne who kills, an already murdered Jason Todd, it needs a pretty hefty reboot. Preferably, doing a Batman who's already established in this universe but still with a lot more stories left to tell, doing an I'm too old for this shit Batman right at the beginning was a big mistake and skipped over a lot of really juicy stories and growth fans would want to see the movies adapt & flesh out, and don't even get me started on that Joker.

Do a classic Batman and Joker war as this film's premise. That's a surefire crowd pleaser, gets Harley Quinn in a movie to satisfy her fans, and gives Warner Bros. an excuse to build a completely new Batman and Joker from the ground up, doing it right this time. Just let Matt Reeves do his magic and the money and fan appreciation will come.

As for The Flash, full reboot. Ezra Miller's version of the character was Barry Allen in name only and was viewed by a lot of people are the worst part of Justice League. Recast as a blonde Barry, and unlike the DCEU version, show his origins! That's interesting to see and the TV show didn't follow the comics that well so doing an accurate adaptation would be fun to see.

There are talks of Warner Bros. planning a Flashpoint film as Barry's first solo outing that need to be scrapped. As a matter of fact don't even mention his parents or Eobard Thawne in this movie once. They've been explored a lot by this point and can definitely be saved for later. Have this movie be an easy-going, down to earth origin stories with the Rogues as the main villains.

Continue with Green Lantern Corps and Justice League

Green Lantern Corps is still moving forward and like the other potential DC projects, it is within their best interest to retcon this in the New DCEU. No one has even been officially casted yet, there's no plot details, no director, nothing! Making this movie fit in the New DCEU would be so easy. The only problem is WB is going to need to figure out how to make this and not screw up like they did last time. The only way to do that is a) Make it space based. Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok showed that movies that are about exploring the cosmos with little forced connection to Earth are very profitable and tell good stories. Green Lantern has so much source material for this, Warner Bros. has no excuse this time! b) Give it a proper budget for special effects. Justice League and the previous Green Lantern movies just looked... the worst. Don't do that again, get it right before you churn it out.

Since Cyborg, the minority of the Justice League doesn't look like he really clicked with audiences or the suits probably won't get a stand alone movie in the near future. This issue of diversity though can be covered with Green Lantern Corps, by making John Stewart a big focus. Hal Jordan should definitely be in the film but he can take a mentor status, John Stewart is someone we haven't seen before and the animated shows proved audiences do like him and what he has to offer. Giving Hal Jordan a Hank Pym-esque role to John Stewart is a good way to add an interesting character to the canon and solve the quota issue.

After all these solo movies DC can finally try and do Justice League again. Except in order to avoid confusion and brand fatigue by having two films by that name they should call this team up movie Justice Society and base the group's lore and origins of the original 1940s team of the same name. This movie can introduce rebooted Superman into the DCEU along with Amanda Waller, and have Brainiac be the villain. Steppenwolf probably soured a lot of casuals to the New Gods (unfortunately), which means DC has to go with another villain. Brainiac is really cool and prime hasn't been used in live-action yet, it's also a good way to connect Superman into the main plot and gives an excuse to show him now adapted as the classic version so many people know and love.

Lineup

With all of those explanations out of the way here's a tl;dr summary of what my ideas for the "Phase 1" line up of the rebooted DC Extended Universe continuity should look like.

2017:

• Wonder Woman - June 2017 - Ares


• Aquaman - December 2018 - Ocean Master


• Shazam! - April 2019 - Black Adam (I know they said Black Adam wasn't gonna be in the movie, but come on, that stand alone needs to get scrapped. Besides, I like the the Rock and think he'd be a good breakout character)


• The Batman - November 2019 - The Joker


• Wonder Woman 2 - June 2020 - Cheetah (I think waiting some extra time and having Batman in late 2019 works better for this schedule)


• The Flash - December 2020 - Captain Cold


• Green Lantern Corps - April 2021 - Sinestro


• Aquaman 2 - December 2021 - The Trench (Assuming the first one would justify a sequel)


• The Justice Society - June 2022 - Brainiac

That's all.

inb4 the DCEU doesn't need fixing.

To be honest this is a good idea, but wouldn't work. They need to wait at least 5 years before rebooting.

Nice, and very intriguing!

This is an amazing idea, it is infinitely better than the current plans for the DCEU.

Wow, awesome blog! This is really in-depth and well thought out!

Sounds awesome. That's all I can say. Also, a JSA movie is a great idea!

I don't see why Batman and Flash should be rebooted, they haven't even done anything major yet.

Thanks, man.

I explain in detail why I think that.

Pretty much my philosophy is that even though the Flash and Batman don't have solo movies yet, their characters are both completely broken. Flash isn't even a forensic scientist nor does he behave anything like Barry Allen should, Batman is pushing 50, murders his enemies and already lived through the majority of his best adventures. There's very little potential to be had with characters who are already one step away from retirement or so canon divergent they're practically OCs.

@mutant1230: Or they can just add context to it, but dunno...

In theory they could. I just think it would be very hard, and still might not win over fan approval.

Interesting

Who would be on the Justice Society team?

Early screenings for Aquaman aren’t looking good so that’s not going to help.

Superman, Batman, Flash (Barry Allen), Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Shazam! and Aquaman.

Ah I see because you’d have to be a dummie to reboot the franchise that gifted us with MOS

DCEU doesn't need fixing. It will live again! *Cue Gargoyle's theme*

Someone finally gets what I was trying to say here! /s