The "DC Extended Universe" Is Not An Official Title From Warner Bros.; In Fact, It Originated As A Joke
It's been revealed today that despite the fact we've all been referring to Warner Bros.' DC Comics movie universe as the "DC Extended Universe," that's not the official name and it originated as a joke.
As we've already told you, Vulture has a great piece up about the DC Extend-wait a second. It's not actually called that. Well, not officially at least! As you can see below, writer Abraham Riesman has revealed that after speaking to Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment/DC Films chiefs, he's been able to confirm that "DC Extended Universe" is not official and used by no one internally at a studio level.
This is a surprise as it's frequently called the DCEU online and I'm positive at least a handful of people involved with making these movies has used that name at some point too! In reality, though, it was thought up as a joke (yes, a joke) by a writer over at Entertainment Weekly all the way back in 2015.
This is interesting for a number of reasons but probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. After all, the studio launched the "DC Films" banner and the "Extended Universe" title has always been a little confusing as some use it to refer to the movie universe and others include shows like Gotham and The Flash! Perhaps DC Films Universe or DC Cinematic Universe would be better? Who knows!
For now, this shared universe remains untitled so feel free to make your own suggestions below!
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.