Forbes on JUSTICE LEAGUE box office and the DCEU's future.
Nov 21, 2017 19:28:13 GMT
theravenking likes this
Post by politicidal on Nov 21, 2017 19:28:13 GMT
and how it will be affected by well, everything that is happening at the moment whether with Rotten Tomatoes or the AT&T debacle.
TEXT:
So let's sit down and face a bitter but inevitable truth, DC fans: the future of the DCEU is up in the air at this point. How much so, and how soon, is of course up for debate, but as the dust settles from this weekend I fear things might turn out much worse than any of us expected in the long run. This is about to be a solemn and sorrowful assessment of hard realities, but there's also some obvious better options to consider, so while we wade through a lot of bad possible scenarios, keep in mind that eventually there's bound to be some light at the end of the tunnel one way or another.
Aquaman is already finished and will release, and so far expectations are that it's a winner, but also keep in mind Warner has repeatedly thought they had a winner (meaning a financial and critical success) in the DCEU and turned out very mistaken. I'm hopeful that James Wan delivered on the promise of the premise, but we still have to wait to see for sure, and this weekend's results will surely cause at least some nervousness about even that project's prospects if audiences wind up convinced the DC brand isn't worth showing up for anymore unless it's Wonder Woman. Speaking of which, Wonder Woman's sequel is all but certain to get made, since that's the one franchise in the DCEU that was a hit and seems sure to provide solid returns and audience trust. And of course, Batman is a standout brand for Warner (although the franchise suffered a big hit in the 1990s and had to rebuild in the 2000s, and now it has likely taken a hit once again and cannot be taken for granted as a sure thing) so Matt Reeves' planned films will get made, now with the potential to be truly standalone stories that aren't tied to any DCEU after all (although that's not certain, I'm just noting the potential now exists). Then there's Shazam!, which will be made but now could get cut loose from the DCEU and become a standalone film after all.
And that's all. Only Aquaman (because it's already made), Wonder Woman 2 (because it's the only seemingly sure thing in the DCEU anymore), an eventual Batman set of films (because it can be done apart from the DCEU as a reboot of the Batman franchise), and Shazam! are the only projects I think we can say are definitely still getting made. Everything else has to be considered unsure and up for debate. We can't assume other projects are "safe" at this point, even if there's a logical argument in their favor (like Suicide Squad 2).
The reason is simple: Warner has to decide whether to keep spending money to fix an existing damaged brand in hopes they can salvage something to build a better future, or consider this a case of spending good money after bad and just focus on Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and Batman for the next seven years and then start over fresh with a more solid longterm plan.
A major factor we cannot ignore is this: the AT&T merger with Time-Warner is going to be challenged in court by a (highly politicized, in my opinion) Department of Justice lawsuit, and stock prices for the companies are going to take a big hit. That inevitable lawsuit and the at least temporary delay/collapse of the merger, combined with the catastrophic box office outcome for Justice League, is going to send a loud message to the Warner board of directors and stockholders who are going to look at this and make choices based on business and financial considerations in the face of probable deep drops in their stock value this week and as the situation plays out over a longer period. There's no way they won't want to clean house at the top and stop the bleed, in my opinion. They'll want to reassure investors, take risks off the table, and send a message that they're taking action to protect IP and investments.
Warner is facing a much bigger problem and struggle to come with the merger battle, so they can't afford an additional major crisis with major IP and film projects. They have to recognize the DCEU has not been popular enough or successful enough, and that aside from Wonder Woman the major associated brands and the ability to capitalize on them with merchandising has taken a big hit. Throwing more money into unproven or guilty-by-association characters is a risk they don't have to take right now, so they might decide that focusing on Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and Batman is plenty enough to build a few solid trilogies that deliver the goods (assuming Aquaman and Shazam are hits, but if they aren't then they'd likewise get set aside after their first solo releases, of course) for the next several years while they fight the Trump administration's attempt to pressure the company into selling their news division to Rupert Murdock and Fox.
It would be relatively easy to create a simple outline of annual staggered releases of Wonder Woman sequels and Batman movies, alongside at least one each film from Aquaman and Shazam (and at least a couple of sequels from them, if the first outings are hit). That's at least seven movies, and possibly ten or more, over a seven to eight year period through 2025. The studio could announce this cutback of DCEU plans, announce several major changes in top Warner Bros executive leadership, announce that DC Films leadership has been given freedom to take their success with Wonder Woman and apply it to developing those other few remaining projects while also creating a longterm plan to reboot the DCEU starting in 2025, and to meanwhile put efforts into expanding the success of the DC television universe into a larger set of properties to exploit across multimedia platforms.
Tightening the belt within the context of (a) admitting the larger DCEU plans didn't pan out and thus require focus on the most successful existing opportunities, while (b) preparing for a total relaunch under a more detailed and successful plan of action to maximize the potential of current investments and create less risky investment for these IP for future investments, (c) bringing in new leadership at the top to steer the company during the coming inevitable storm, (d) an aggressive confrontation of what they will surely argue is an unreasonable and politically motivated lawsuit from the Trump administration, and (e) shifting some attention toward greater development of the TV division's exploitation of these branded IP as an example and reminder that DC has seen some consistent solid success in areas that allow cross-platform promotion of the DC stable of characters, could be the most rational plan of action in light of the way things look today.
The plans for an "elseworld" banner of films doesn't have to be completely scrapped, since it allows development and production of lower-budget standalone DC movies unconnected to the DCEU that the studio may wish to (sadly) step away from for now. However, it's also likely that a more scaled-back wait-and-see approach to any but the least-risky investments for such films is justified at this point, too. A Joker origin movie, for example, is less of a risk, while something like Kingdom Come (just a hypothetical project) would require more money and is a harder sell for a studio that just saw a team-up film of those characters fall on its face at the box office.
I'd argue that the best plan for now would be to let Matt Reeves develop his own Batman trilogy entirely separate from the DCEU, as a reboot of the Caped Crusader's franchise. Tell him the entirety of Batman's world of supporting bat-family is at his disposal, and that the bigger he makes it, the better. Then develop a superhero shared universe around the bat-family. Yes, many fans will groan and complain that letting Batman be the focus is unfair to other heroes, but I'd counter by noting this is a business and that there won't be ANY other hero movies if the studio doesn't first start investing in popular box office hits. Batman is, like it or not, a character who can be used to build a shared world of other popular tied-in heroes, so at this point it would be a bit crazy not to pursue that -- with a slow, serious, good plan that doesn't allow studio execs to stick fingers into the pie. Let Geoff Johns assemble a dream team of writers, creators, and producers to work with Reeves to design a multi-film Batman approach that includes a larger bat-family, and get it right.
Source: Warner Bros
Ben Affleck as Batman in Warner's "Justice League"
Wonder Woman likewise is a successful brand that can get sequels driven by the collaborative efforts of Patty Jenkins and Geoff Johns, too. There's not as much spinoff potential as Batman's "family" has, but there are still several characters in Wonder Woman's world worthy of solo spinoffs, not to mention the idea of an entire movie about the Amazons and their history too.
Shazam has a big world of characters to develop into their own shared universe, of course, so that should also be a priority if the first movie is a hit. There's so much potential -- it's Harry Potter, with a spell to turn into Superman, in a funny family-friendly action-adventure series, so there's no excuse not to get it entirely right. I have to name Geoff Johns yet again here, since he wrote what many (myself included) consider the definitive way to launch the Captain Marvel character and his world, so New Line should definitely be using that as a guide.
Aquaman has great potential as long as the solo movie is great, and as long as audiences buy into it. It's not enough to just have a great film if the audiences don't show up, and there's a real chance the hangover from Justice League could cause that to happen. Likewise, if the film performs decently yet receives mixed reviews and only a B+ grade from audiences, that's not enough to consider a success either, since it mirrors the situation the DCEU has already been trapped in. Only an A-level audience score, strong positive critical reviews, and big box office success can justify sequels -- but if that happens, then Aquaman definitely needs to stay alive as another franchise for Warner.
Some folks will talk about the possibility of Warner just reverting to licensing these characters to other studios for cinematic adaptations, while retaining just a handful of core properties -- Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman maybe -- and focusing entirely on TV and merchandising for the rest of the DC lineup. While there's some merit to this as a short-term option, the longterm viability of a larger shared universe and exploiting a massive library of IP like DC Comics suggest it would be career suicide for any exec to sell off the rights to such characters at a time when all other studios are eagerly trying to develop and expand their own stable of properties for wider tie-ins and crossovers. Certainly a few of the smaller and lesser corners of the DCEU might offer too little ultimate financial rewards in merchandising and cross-platform development to make it worth Warner's investment (especially as they focus on those characters and properties with the most promise), so licensing some of those could be a smart movie in the short-term. Any larger licensing plan that sends major or majority of IP to other studios, though, would just be crazy right now.
As for press coverage of all of this, let's also note that while it's pointless to pretend the Justice League box office is anything other than a collapse of that property at the moment and a huge blow to the DCEU, it's also pointless to look for "hot takes" that resort to hyperbolic, misinformed, or outright dishonest assessments at the moment.
What I feel are particularly silly, irrelevant, and frankly lazy ways to assess the situation are those breathless articles trying to pitch the tired "audience fatigue" claim toward the whole genre, or toward the concept of shared universes in general. No, in a year with three Marvel films all topping $800 million and setting records, and with Logan topping $600 million, it's ridiculous to trot out those echoes of a news narrative so many journalists have tried to pitch to us year after year. Pointing to every failure and exclaiming that it means the sky is falling is precisely why a lot of fans and readers dismiss so much of entertainment press opinion these days, and why there's a sense that at least some outlets or writers harbor personal wish-fulfillment fantasies of the genre's demise and seek to hasten it with negative coverage. These lazier writers do journalism no favors by perpetuating the worst impressions, so the sooner they get such lazy parroting out of their mouths, the better.
Audiences aren't tired of superhero movies, nor of superhero team-up movies. It's simply a case of audiences having been fed so much high-quality entertainment and having so many options to choose from, that half-measures and heavily flawed products simply don't get them as excited anymore. I liked Justice League, I gave it a good review, and I think if more people gave it a chance they'd discover they liked it a lot more than the bad reviews suggest they would. But I also fully realize it's a flawed film, isn't the best of the DCEU so far, and that anyone who saw Wonder Woman would surely recognize Justice League is a comedown from that film's spectacular entertainment, dramatic weight, and compelling character arcs.
Likewise, Justice League followed closely on the heels of Thor: Ragnarok, which -- whether DC fans like it or not -- appealed far more to mainstream viewers and family audiences seeking humorous action-driven superhero excitement. So instead of a coattail lift riding the audience good will toward the genre after that MCU hit, Justice League unfortunately suffered from comparisons that found it wanting. Fans may not agree with that sentiment, but it's how most audiences seemed to feel, based on all available evidence.
Warner has to recognize this and react smartly, without overreacting or cutting off its nose to spite its face. Canceling all of the DC movies would of course be unwarranted and self-defeating in the extreme. Canceling none of the DCEU plans and insisting on staying the course would be refusing to accept reality. But recognizing which projects have the clearest chance of success and focusing on them, shelving the others and reassessing all of the plans for a shared DCEU based on the existing films so far, and determining to set a new path based on maximizing successful brands and finding leadership for the studio that can operate in the current rapidly changing climate avoids reacting too far in either direction -- it retains what works, casts aside what bluntly hasn't worked, and looks for a way to apply the successes to other areas and IP that so far have failed.
My guess is that Warner will soon have a change of leadership, that DC Films will be tasked with focusing on getting Wonder Woman 2 and The Batman into development with as firm and high-quality a plan as possible, to prepare a detailed marketing plan for Aquaman that distances it from the DCEU to date and pitches it as a fantasy action-adventure of its own, and to alter the plans for Shazam! to make it a stand-alone property apart from the rest of the DCEU (or replacing Superman's rumored role with Wonder Woman so that those two franchises can intermingle as a smaller version of the DCEU perhaps). I think of the other properties, the ones with most chance to survive are Suicide Squad 2, and perhaps a solo Flash movie as well. The Joker origin project for DC Films' "elseworld" banner and the Harley Quinn-Joker Mad Love project (again, just the title I'm using as a place-holder since it's awesome) could remain on the table, since those are high-profile brands that either lack or could easily jettison any overt ties to the DCEU and become their own standalone projects.
But I honestly think Green Lantern, Cyborg, Flashpoint, and a Man of Steel sequel are probably going to wind up on hold or cancelled. Flashpoint could be revived if Warner decides to use it as a last-ditch attempt to reboot this entire DCEU in a way that still lets them retain the few elements that worked (Wonder Woman for example, and maybe Aquaman if his film hits home, plus Flash if the studio feels confident about that character as a breakout worth keeping in Justice League). This is of course all just my own best guess today, so don't think I'm "reporting" this as sourced news, but in the instant aftermath of the weekend's box office results these are my current expectations.
I'm severely unhappy at the prospect of the Cyborg film being lost, as Ray Fisher was among my favorite and the best parts of Justice League. Ben Affleck was frankly on his way out the door anyway, and Batman will probably get a soft or hard reboot now -- I've resisted speaking too much about this publicly, but behind the scenes most sources have consistently stated he and Warner were just waiting until after Justice League to make an announcement, so the box office situation will probably expedite that process for them (which, I would guess, will actually be a relief for Affleck and Warner, since I imagine there's been some stress and frustration for them in trying to maintain vagueness about everything for the past several months).
Warner can't just come out publicly and say all of this at once, nor can we expect a company with so much money invested and facing difficult legal challenges from a hostile administration to prioritize all of these major decisions in the next few hours or days. They'll have to seek silver linings and some more upbeat sentiments for public remarks, while admitting obviously that this isn't the best of news and that they'll have to make some changes.
So don't be alarmed or shocked or angry when some decisions take time and some public reactions are more restrained -- that's business, and any of us in their place would probably do the same thing. But eventually, the dam will break, hard choices will be made, some projects will be cancelled, some restructuring and hiring will take place, and inevitably some of the decision made sooner will wind up reversed later. The bottom line is, though, is some franchises will survive, the stress of wondering what's happening will lift, and the field will be cleared enough that we'll recognize there's new potential for a fresh approach that isn't weighed down by past decisions or lingering troubles.
The DCEU, even if it suffers a restriction in size or an outright temporary halt, will rise again in one form or another. Even in this dark night, that hope will remain alive and that light will inevitably reveal itself at the end of the tunnel.
www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2017/11/20/justice-league-box-office-failure-doj-lawsuit-are-major-trouble-for-dceu/#27fd8b744b91
TEXT:
So let's sit down and face a bitter but inevitable truth, DC fans: the future of the DCEU is up in the air at this point. How much so, and how soon, is of course up for debate, but as the dust settles from this weekend I fear things might turn out much worse than any of us expected in the long run. This is about to be a solemn and sorrowful assessment of hard realities, but there's also some obvious better options to consider, so while we wade through a lot of bad possible scenarios, keep in mind that eventually there's bound to be some light at the end of the tunnel one way or another.
Aquaman is already finished and will release, and so far expectations are that it's a winner, but also keep in mind Warner has repeatedly thought they had a winner (meaning a financial and critical success) in the DCEU and turned out very mistaken. I'm hopeful that James Wan delivered on the promise of the premise, but we still have to wait to see for sure, and this weekend's results will surely cause at least some nervousness about even that project's prospects if audiences wind up convinced the DC brand isn't worth showing up for anymore unless it's Wonder Woman. Speaking of which, Wonder Woman's sequel is all but certain to get made, since that's the one franchise in the DCEU that was a hit and seems sure to provide solid returns and audience trust. And of course, Batman is a standout brand for Warner (although the franchise suffered a big hit in the 1990s and had to rebuild in the 2000s, and now it has likely taken a hit once again and cannot be taken for granted as a sure thing) so Matt Reeves' planned films will get made, now with the potential to be truly standalone stories that aren't tied to any DCEU after all (although that's not certain, I'm just noting the potential now exists). Then there's Shazam!, which will be made but now could get cut loose from the DCEU and become a standalone film after all.
And that's all. Only Aquaman (because it's already made), Wonder Woman 2 (because it's the only seemingly sure thing in the DCEU anymore), an eventual Batman set of films (because it can be done apart from the DCEU as a reboot of the Batman franchise), and Shazam! are the only projects I think we can say are definitely still getting made. Everything else has to be considered unsure and up for debate. We can't assume other projects are "safe" at this point, even if there's a logical argument in their favor (like Suicide Squad 2).
The reason is simple: Warner has to decide whether to keep spending money to fix an existing damaged brand in hopes they can salvage something to build a better future, or consider this a case of spending good money after bad and just focus on Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and Batman for the next seven years and then start over fresh with a more solid longterm plan.
A major factor we cannot ignore is this: the AT&T merger with Time-Warner is going to be challenged in court by a (highly politicized, in my opinion) Department of Justice lawsuit, and stock prices for the companies are going to take a big hit. That inevitable lawsuit and the at least temporary delay/collapse of the merger, combined with the catastrophic box office outcome for Justice League, is going to send a loud message to the Warner board of directors and stockholders who are going to look at this and make choices based on business and financial considerations in the face of probable deep drops in their stock value this week and as the situation plays out over a longer period. There's no way they won't want to clean house at the top and stop the bleed, in my opinion. They'll want to reassure investors, take risks off the table, and send a message that they're taking action to protect IP and investments.
Warner is facing a much bigger problem and struggle to come with the merger battle, so they can't afford an additional major crisis with major IP and film projects. They have to recognize the DCEU has not been popular enough or successful enough, and that aside from Wonder Woman the major associated brands and the ability to capitalize on them with merchandising has taken a big hit. Throwing more money into unproven or guilty-by-association characters is a risk they don't have to take right now, so they might decide that focusing on Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and Batman is plenty enough to build a few solid trilogies that deliver the goods (assuming Aquaman and Shazam are hits, but if they aren't then they'd likewise get set aside after their first solo releases, of course) for the next several years while they fight the Trump administration's attempt to pressure the company into selling their news division to Rupert Murdock and Fox.
It would be relatively easy to create a simple outline of annual staggered releases of Wonder Woman sequels and Batman movies, alongside at least one each film from Aquaman and Shazam (and at least a couple of sequels from them, if the first outings are hit). That's at least seven movies, and possibly ten or more, over a seven to eight year period through 2025. The studio could announce this cutback of DCEU plans, announce several major changes in top Warner Bros executive leadership, announce that DC Films leadership has been given freedom to take their success with Wonder Woman and apply it to developing those other few remaining projects while also creating a longterm plan to reboot the DCEU starting in 2025, and to meanwhile put efforts into expanding the success of the DC television universe into a larger set of properties to exploit across multimedia platforms.
Tightening the belt within the context of (a) admitting the larger DCEU plans didn't pan out and thus require focus on the most successful existing opportunities, while (b) preparing for a total relaunch under a more detailed and successful plan of action to maximize the potential of current investments and create less risky investment for these IP for future investments, (c) bringing in new leadership at the top to steer the company during the coming inevitable storm, (d) an aggressive confrontation of what they will surely argue is an unreasonable and politically motivated lawsuit from the Trump administration, and (e) shifting some attention toward greater development of the TV division's exploitation of these branded IP as an example and reminder that DC has seen some consistent solid success in areas that allow cross-platform promotion of the DC stable of characters, could be the most rational plan of action in light of the way things look today.
The plans for an "elseworld" banner of films doesn't have to be completely scrapped, since it allows development and production of lower-budget standalone DC movies unconnected to the DCEU that the studio may wish to (sadly) step away from for now. However, it's also likely that a more scaled-back wait-and-see approach to any but the least-risky investments for such films is justified at this point, too. A Joker origin movie, for example, is less of a risk, while something like Kingdom Come (just a hypothetical project) would require more money and is a harder sell for a studio that just saw a team-up film of those characters fall on its face at the box office.
I'd argue that the best plan for now would be to let Matt Reeves develop his own Batman trilogy entirely separate from the DCEU, as a reboot of the Caped Crusader's franchise. Tell him the entirety of Batman's world of supporting bat-family is at his disposal, and that the bigger he makes it, the better. Then develop a superhero shared universe around the bat-family. Yes, many fans will groan and complain that letting Batman be the focus is unfair to other heroes, but I'd counter by noting this is a business and that there won't be ANY other hero movies if the studio doesn't first start investing in popular box office hits. Batman is, like it or not, a character who can be used to build a shared world of other popular tied-in heroes, so at this point it would be a bit crazy not to pursue that -- with a slow, serious, good plan that doesn't allow studio execs to stick fingers into the pie. Let Geoff Johns assemble a dream team of writers, creators, and producers to work with Reeves to design a multi-film Batman approach that includes a larger bat-family, and get it right.
Source: Warner Bros
Ben Affleck as Batman in Warner's "Justice League"
Wonder Woman likewise is a successful brand that can get sequels driven by the collaborative efforts of Patty Jenkins and Geoff Johns, too. There's not as much spinoff potential as Batman's "family" has, but there are still several characters in Wonder Woman's world worthy of solo spinoffs, not to mention the idea of an entire movie about the Amazons and their history too.
Shazam has a big world of characters to develop into their own shared universe, of course, so that should also be a priority if the first movie is a hit. There's so much potential -- it's Harry Potter, with a spell to turn into Superman, in a funny family-friendly action-adventure series, so there's no excuse not to get it entirely right. I have to name Geoff Johns yet again here, since he wrote what many (myself included) consider the definitive way to launch the Captain Marvel character and his world, so New Line should definitely be using that as a guide.
Aquaman has great potential as long as the solo movie is great, and as long as audiences buy into it. It's not enough to just have a great film if the audiences don't show up, and there's a real chance the hangover from Justice League could cause that to happen. Likewise, if the film performs decently yet receives mixed reviews and only a B+ grade from audiences, that's not enough to consider a success either, since it mirrors the situation the DCEU has already been trapped in. Only an A-level audience score, strong positive critical reviews, and big box office success can justify sequels -- but if that happens, then Aquaman definitely needs to stay alive as another franchise for Warner.
Some folks will talk about the possibility of Warner just reverting to licensing these characters to other studios for cinematic adaptations, while retaining just a handful of core properties -- Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman maybe -- and focusing entirely on TV and merchandising for the rest of the DC lineup. While there's some merit to this as a short-term option, the longterm viability of a larger shared universe and exploiting a massive library of IP like DC Comics suggest it would be career suicide for any exec to sell off the rights to such characters at a time when all other studios are eagerly trying to develop and expand their own stable of properties for wider tie-ins and crossovers. Certainly a few of the smaller and lesser corners of the DCEU might offer too little ultimate financial rewards in merchandising and cross-platform development to make it worth Warner's investment (especially as they focus on those characters and properties with the most promise), so licensing some of those could be a smart movie in the short-term. Any larger licensing plan that sends major or majority of IP to other studios, though, would just be crazy right now.
As for press coverage of all of this, let's also note that while it's pointless to pretend the Justice League box office is anything other than a collapse of that property at the moment and a huge blow to the DCEU, it's also pointless to look for "hot takes" that resort to hyperbolic, misinformed, or outright dishonest assessments at the moment.
What I feel are particularly silly, irrelevant, and frankly lazy ways to assess the situation are those breathless articles trying to pitch the tired "audience fatigue" claim toward the whole genre, or toward the concept of shared universes in general. No, in a year with three Marvel films all topping $800 million and setting records, and with Logan topping $600 million, it's ridiculous to trot out those echoes of a news narrative so many journalists have tried to pitch to us year after year. Pointing to every failure and exclaiming that it means the sky is falling is precisely why a lot of fans and readers dismiss so much of entertainment press opinion these days, and why there's a sense that at least some outlets or writers harbor personal wish-fulfillment fantasies of the genre's demise and seek to hasten it with negative coverage. These lazier writers do journalism no favors by perpetuating the worst impressions, so the sooner they get such lazy parroting out of their mouths, the better.
Audiences aren't tired of superhero movies, nor of superhero team-up movies. It's simply a case of audiences having been fed so much high-quality entertainment and having so many options to choose from, that half-measures and heavily flawed products simply don't get them as excited anymore. I liked Justice League, I gave it a good review, and I think if more people gave it a chance they'd discover they liked it a lot more than the bad reviews suggest they would. But I also fully realize it's a flawed film, isn't the best of the DCEU so far, and that anyone who saw Wonder Woman would surely recognize Justice League is a comedown from that film's spectacular entertainment, dramatic weight, and compelling character arcs.
Likewise, Justice League followed closely on the heels of Thor: Ragnarok, which -- whether DC fans like it or not -- appealed far more to mainstream viewers and family audiences seeking humorous action-driven superhero excitement. So instead of a coattail lift riding the audience good will toward the genre after that MCU hit, Justice League unfortunately suffered from comparisons that found it wanting. Fans may not agree with that sentiment, but it's how most audiences seemed to feel, based on all available evidence.
Warner has to recognize this and react smartly, without overreacting or cutting off its nose to spite its face. Canceling all of the DC movies would of course be unwarranted and self-defeating in the extreme. Canceling none of the DCEU plans and insisting on staying the course would be refusing to accept reality. But recognizing which projects have the clearest chance of success and focusing on them, shelving the others and reassessing all of the plans for a shared DCEU based on the existing films so far, and determining to set a new path based on maximizing successful brands and finding leadership for the studio that can operate in the current rapidly changing climate avoids reacting too far in either direction -- it retains what works, casts aside what bluntly hasn't worked, and looks for a way to apply the successes to other areas and IP that so far have failed.
My guess is that Warner will soon have a change of leadership, that DC Films will be tasked with focusing on getting Wonder Woman 2 and The Batman into development with as firm and high-quality a plan as possible, to prepare a detailed marketing plan for Aquaman that distances it from the DCEU to date and pitches it as a fantasy action-adventure of its own, and to alter the plans for Shazam! to make it a stand-alone property apart from the rest of the DCEU (or replacing Superman's rumored role with Wonder Woman so that those two franchises can intermingle as a smaller version of the DCEU perhaps). I think of the other properties, the ones with most chance to survive are Suicide Squad 2, and perhaps a solo Flash movie as well. The Joker origin project for DC Films' "elseworld" banner and the Harley Quinn-Joker Mad Love project (again, just the title I'm using as a place-holder since it's awesome) could remain on the table, since those are high-profile brands that either lack or could easily jettison any overt ties to the DCEU and become their own standalone projects.
But I honestly think Green Lantern, Cyborg, Flashpoint, and a Man of Steel sequel are probably going to wind up on hold or cancelled. Flashpoint could be revived if Warner decides to use it as a last-ditch attempt to reboot this entire DCEU in a way that still lets them retain the few elements that worked (Wonder Woman for example, and maybe Aquaman if his film hits home, plus Flash if the studio feels confident about that character as a breakout worth keeping in Justice League). This is of course all just my own best guess today, so don't think I'm "reporting" this as sourced news, but in the instant aftermath of the weekend's box office results these are my current expectations.
I'm severely unhappy at the prospect of the Cyborg film being lost, as Ray Fisher was among my favorite and the best parts of Justice League. Ben Affleck was frankly on his way out the door anyway, and Batman will probably get a soft or hard reboot now -- I've resisted speaking too much about this publicly, but behind the scenes most sources have consistently stated he and Warner were just waiting until after Justice League to make an announcement, so the box office situation will probably expedite that process for them (which, I would guess, will actually be a relief for Affleck and Warner, since I imagine there's been some stress and frustration for them in trying to maintain vagueness about everything for the past several months).
Warner can't just come out publicly and say all of this at once, nor can we expect a company with so much money invested and facing difficult legal challenges from a hostile administration to prioritize all of these major decisions in the next few hours or days. They'll have to seek silver linings and some more upbeat sentiments for public remarks, while admitting obviously that this isn't the best of news and that they'll have to make some changes.
So don't be alarmed or shocked or angry when some decisions take time and some public reactions are more restrained -- that's business, and any of us in their place would probably do the same thing. But eventually, the dam will break, hard choices will be made, some projects will be cancelled, some restructuring and hiring will take place, and inevitably some of the decision made sooner will wind up reversed later. The bottom line is, though, is some franchises will survive, the stress of wondering what's happening will lift, and the field will be cleared enough that we'll recognize there's new potential for a fresh approach that isn't weighed down by past decisions or lingering troubles.
The DCEU, even if it suffers a restriction in size or an outright temporary halt, will rise again in one form or another. Even in this dark night, that hope will remain alive and that light will inevitably reveal itself at the end of the tunnel.
www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2017/11/20/justice-league-box-office-failure-doj-lawsuit-are-major-trouble-for-dceu/#27fd8b744b91
