The DC superhero flicks released by Warner Bros. in recent years have been pretty terrible. And I mean, really, really bad.
And before you point to the obvious exception, know that I think of "Wonder Woman" as a fluke in which Warner Brothers accidentally ended up with a spectacular director, but only after abandoning their go-to pool of filmmakers (including Zack Snyder and pretty much no one else) in favor of a strong female director, evidently one they couldn't boss around enough to make the bland movie they were expecting.
But apart from that one surprisingly fun movie, the legacy of the DCEU (DC Extended Universe for all you normies) remains entirely negative, or at the very least lackluster. Its journey began with "Man of Steel," a film either received by audiences as a masterpiece or as painfully mediocre, before stumbling into the polarizing (yet usually negative) reception of "Batman V. Superman" and then nosediving further into the horribly received "Suicide Squad", disliked by critics and fans alike. To top it all off was "Justice League", a film so warped by the hands of two distinct directors (both unable to make a terrible script seem epic) that the final result resembled a Frankenstein-esque mess more than an actual movie.
At this point, the plague of poor writing, unclear vision, and god-awful CGI has become so synonymous with the Warner Bros. franchise that any announcements of upcoming DCEU projects fail to amuse me, no matter how promising they might be. Not even this year's "Aquaman", directed by horror extraordinaire and acclaimed filmmaker James Wan. Not even the new "Shazam" film, which is being directed by another horror favorite of mine, David F. Sandberg (from "Lights Out" and "Annabelle: Creation" fame). No, the only thing that'll pique my interest surrounding the future of the DCEU is the announcement of an entire universe reboot.
Pushing the brakes on the DCEU might seem like a drastic move, but it's the only way I see Warner Brothers recouping its losses and restoring the hype around its major characters. Too many classic heroes have been royally botched in the past few years, from Batman (who's middle-aged and cool with killing) to the Joker (who's a grungey gangster with "DAMAGED" actually tattooed across his forehead). In crafting a shared movie universe in the vein of Marvel, DC has stripped away its ability to "do-over" some of its characters, an option I see them considering in the near future.
For all DC films to survive, what we know as the DC Extended Universe must die. What that means in less dramatic wording is that the DC movies will only get better if Warner Bros. dismantles its attempts at a shared universe in favor of traditional storytelling. Prior to the DCEU, Warner Brothers operated its DC superhero movies much like any other franchise, with each hero getting his own trilogy or stand-alone movie, only for it to be redone in a few years time. This system worked out fairly well, spawning a few monster blockbusters like "The Dark Knight" while allowing a few different filmmakers to try their hand at the characters. If a return to this system creates successful franchises for certain characters as I expect it will, DC would be free to build a new shared universe, this time with established and beloved characters and a formula for superhero fun that's already proven to work (a la Marvel).
The logistics of my proposal, a complete and utter reboot of the DCEU, can be decided by whichever hotshot executive at WB claims my idea as his own (because yes, I am definitely the first person to say this on the known Internet). Hey, and if he chooses to continue the "Wonder Woman" franchise beyond the DCEU's downfall, I definitely won't complain.
As a fan of DC characters and comics, I'll never lose hope for a time when I can sit back and enjoy seeing all my favorite characters and stories play out onscreen, no matter how long the wait. Until then, we can only hope that "Aquaman" and "Shazam" are great films, regardless of the DCEU's inevitable and impending demise.
