There's a lot of confusion surrounding what Warner Bros. Discovery has planned for the DC Extended Universe, though all signs point to The Flash rebooting this world.
Superman is expected to be replaced with Supergirl, while Ben Affleck's Batman will be swapped out with Michael Keaton's original big screen Caped Crusader. This explains why the Batman and Batman Returns star was going to appear in Batgirl, and ridding themselves of Henry Cavill and Affleck means the studio can somewhat move on from the SnyderVerse.
There are remnants, of course, including a number of actors who were cast by Zack Snyder. J.K. Simmons, for example, was going to appear in Batgirl after debuting in Justice League. However, neither that nor the fact that Keaton has just been switched out for Affleck in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom should be taken as an indication that Warner Bros. is about to #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.
Rolling Stone reveals that "In a telling sign of how far the studio is looking to distance itself from Snyder, a source says documentary filmmaker Leslie Iwerks recently asked to license clips from the 2021 Justice League for a film on the history of DC and was told there is only one Justice League: the 2017 incarnation."
Ouch.
Clearly, this new regime would rather consider the 2017 version of the movie "official" than the four-hour cut that debuted on HBO Max last year. There may be a number of reasons for this, though.
For starters, there's no denying that the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement led to a lot of toxicity online, including the harassment of several Warner Bros. employees. Warner Bros. Also, CEO David Zaslav doesn't seem to rate streaming titles that highly, and the $657 million Joss Whedon's cut made in theaters clearly means more to him than HBO Max viewership figures.
There is speculation that The Flash sets the stage for a Crisis on Infinite Earths movie, but completely starting from scratch with DC at this point might be the best possible idea.
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