Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC Superhero Universe to Take On Marvel
A new battle is brewing between caped crusaders, muscle-bound mutants and champions of justice in skintight pants. Only this time, it is billions of dollars in box-office receipts at stake.
James Gunn
and
Peter Safran,
the newly named chiefs of
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s
WBD 2.19%
DC Studios, on Monday unveiled the first stage of DC’s new plan for global domination, announcing an ambitious slate of five films and five new series based on DC Comics titles that will comprise the newly reorganized DC Universe.
The plan reveals for the first time how Warner Discovery Chief Executive
David Zaslav
wants to slug it out with
Walt Disney Co.
DIS 0.75%
’s Marvel Studios, home of Iron Man, Captain America and Spider-Man. Marvel Studios has become in a decade and a half one of the most profitable studios in Hollywood history.
James Gunn, in blue, and Peter Safran are the recently named chiefs of Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC Studios.
Photo:
Associated Press
“A lot of people are thinking that this is going to be Marvel 2.0,” Mr. Gunn said Monday. “It’s not.”
Instead, he said, the studio will focus on launching a cinematic DC Universe in July 2025 that is “unified” but that focuses on making screenwriters more “prominent” in the filmmaking process, rather than star actors or directors.
Mr. Gunn said the first release will be the feature film “Superman: Legacy,” which he is currently writing. The film, which hasn’t yet been cast, will “focus on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing,” Mr. Safran said.
Warner Bros. Discovery had previously said that Henry Cavill, the most recent star to portray Superman, wouldn’t reprise the role, despite appearing in a post-credits screen at the end of last year’s “Black Adam.”
Warner Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav.
Photo:
angela weiss/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Other titles DC announced were “Lanterns,” a superhero mystery series that the studio chief compared to the HBO series “True Detective”; “The Authority,” a movie based on DC Comics characters from the late 1990s; and “Paradise Lost,” a series that explores the fictional island kingdom of Themyscira, where Wonder Woman originated.
The studio also plans a Batman and Robin movie called “The Brave and the Bold,” based on a comic-book run written by Grant Morrison that began publishing in 2006 and portrays Robin as Damian Wayne, the illegitimate son of Batman and his supervillain paramour.
The DCU will also include “Booster Gold,” a series for HBOMax that follows what Mr. Gunn described as “a loser from the future” who travels back in time and pretends to be a present-day superhero. The studio also plans to make a movie titled “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” based on DC Comics story lines that portray Superman’s female cousin as a brash, foul-mouthed, independent woman who seeks revenge on a group of vicious aliens, and a reboot of “Swamp Thing.”
For years, the DC franchise has trailed Marvel in terms of box-office performance. Mr. Zaslav has spoken over the past year about his desire to replicate Marvel’s success and make higher-quality superhero films.
Since 2008, Marvel has produced 30 live-action superhero films that have together earned more than $28 billion in ticket sales. Disney bought the studio for $4 billion in 2009, and has distributed 25 of those movies, with a total box-office gross of $25.8 billion, according to ticket sales tracker
Comscore.
DC movies have lagged behind the standard set by Marvel at the box office. Since 2004, Warner Bros. has released 22 films based on DC comics titles, with a combined gross of $11.6 billion, according to the website BoxOfficeMojo.
In October, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Mr. Gunn, the veteran superhero movie writer and director behind Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and DC’s “The Suicide Squad” along with his producing partner, Mr. Safran, to lead DC Studios.
Movies like ‘Joker,’ which starred Joaquin Phoenix and grossed more than $1 billion, won’t be part of what’s been dubbed the DC Universe; instead, it will be part of a series called Elseworlds.
Photo:
Warner Bros/Everett Collection
In August, Warner Bros. Discovery scrapped “Batgirl,” a nearly complete superhero film, taking a tax break on the cost of the production rather than sending it straight to the streaming platform for release. On Monday, Mr. Safran described this decision as “courageous” and said he had seen a version of the film that he didn’t think would have been successful in theaters. The two DC Studios chiefs said that characters like Batgirl could someday re-emerge in DC films or series.
Warner Bros. Discovery has four DC Comics-based movies set for release this year, including “The Flash,” which the studio chiefs described as a “total reset” of the franchise, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and “Blue Beetle.”
Some other movies based on DC comics, including next year’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” a sequel to the popular Todd Phillips film “Joker” from 2019, and an in-production Superman project with a Black main character written by political commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates and directed by J.J. Abrams, will remain part of what is dubbed the DC Elseworlds, a term that comes from one of DC’s comics publishing imprints, rather than the DC Universe.
Write to Robbie Whelan at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
A new battle is brewing between caped crusaders, muscle-bound mutants and champions of justice in skintight pants. Only this time, it is billions of dollars in box-office receipts at stake.
James Gunn
and
Peter Safran,
the newly named chiefs of
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s
WBD 2.19%
DC Studios, on Monday unveiled the first stage of DC’s new plan for global domination, announcing an ambitious slate of five films and five new series based on DC Comics titles that will comprise the newly reorganized DC Universe.
The plan reveals for the first time how Warner Discovery Chief Executive
David Zaslav
wants to slug it out with
Walt Disney Co.
DIS 0.75%
’s Marvel Studios, home of Iron Man, Captain America and Spider-Man. Marvel Studios has become in a decade and a half one of the most profitable studios in Hollywood history.
James Gunn, in blue, and Peter Safran are the recently named chiefs of Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC Studios.
Photo:
Associated Press
“A lot of people are thinking that this is going to be Marvel 2.0,” Mr. Gunn said Monday. “It’s not.”
Instead, he said, the studio will focus on launching a cinematic DC Universe in July 2025 that is “unified” but that focuses on making screenwriters more “prominent” in the filmmaking process, rather than star actors or directors.
Mr. Gunn said the first release will be the feature film “Superman: Legacy,” which he is currently writing. The film, which hasn’t yet been cast, will “focus on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing,” Mr. Safran said.
Warner Bros. Discovery had previously said that Henry Cavill, the most recent star to portray Superman, wouldn’t reprise the role, despite appearing in a post-credits screen at the end of last year’s “Black Adam.”
Warner Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav.
Photo:
angela weiss/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Other titles DC announced were “Lanterns,” a superhero mystery series that the studio chief compared to the HBO series “True Detective”; “The Authority,” a movie based on DC Comics characters from the late 1990s; and “Paradise Lost,” a series that explores the fictional island kingdom of Themyscira, where Wonder Woman originated.
The studio also plans a Batman and Robin movie called “The Brave and the Bold,” based on a comic-book run written by Grant Morrison that began publishing in 2006 and portrays Robin as Damian Wayne, the illegitimate son of Batman and his supervillain paramour.
The DCU will also include “Booster Gold,” a series for HBOMax that follows what Mr. Gunn described as “a loser from the future” who travels back in time and pretends to be a present-day superhero. The studio also plans to make a movie titled “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” based on DC Comics story lines that portray Superman’s female cousin as a brash, foul-mouthed, independent woman who seeks revenge on a group of vicious aliens, and a reboot of “Swamp Thing.”
For years, the DC franchise has trailed Marvel in terms of box-office performance. Mr. Zaslav has spoken over the past year about his desire to replicate Marvel’s success and make higher-quality superhero films.
Since 2008, Marvel has produced 30 live-action superhero films that have together earned more than $28 billion in ticket sales. Disney bought the studio for $4 billion in 2009, and has distributed 25 of those movies, with a total box-office gross of $25.8 billion, according to ticket sales tracker
Comscore.
DC movies have lagged behind the standard set by Marvel at the box office. Since 2004, Warner Bros. has released 22 films based on DC comics titles, with a combined gross of $11.6 billion, according to the website BoxOfficeMojo.
In October, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Mr. Gunn, the veteran superhero movie writer and director behind Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and DC’s “The Suicide Squad” along with his producing partner, Mr. Safran, to lead DC Studios.
Movies like ‘Joker,’ which starred Joaquin Phoenix and grossed more than $1 billion, won’t be part of what’s been dubbed the DC Universe; instead, it will be part of a series called Elseworlds.
Photo:
Warner Bros/Everett Collection
In August, Warner Bros. Discovery scrapped “Batgirl,” a nearly complete superhero film, taking a tax break on the cost of the production rather than sending it straight to the streaming platform for release. On Monday, Mr. Safran described this decision as “courageous” and said he had seen a version of the film that he didn’t think would have been successful in theaters. The two DC Studios chiefs said that characters like Batgirl could someday re-emerge in DC films or series.
Warner Bros. Discovery has four DC Comics-based movies set for release this year, including “The Flash,” which the studio chiefs described as a “total reset” of the franchise, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and “Blue Beetle.”
Some other movies based on DC comics, including next year’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” a sequel to the popular Todd Phillips film “Joker” from 2019, and an in-production Superman project with a Black main character written by political commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates and directed by J.J. Abrams, will remain part of what is dubbed the DC Elseworlds, a term that comes from one of DC’s comics publishing imprints, rather than the DC Universe.
Write to Robbie Whelan at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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