The year was 2013 and Warner Bros. is about to release its first major tentpole, Man of Steel as its answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What happened next shocked the studio as not only did the movie fail to deliver at the box office in the way they had hoped, but the movie was divisive, to put it mildly.
As a result, the studio panicked and went for broke on moving the universe forward in a major way with the announcement of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. It would be 5 years and 5 movies later until the studio, similar to the MCU, saw a billion-dollar hit with the first Aquaman movie.
The lifespan of the DCEU was fraught with turmoil within the studio, among the fan base, and the general audience just didn't care in the way they did for the MCU. Some of this turmoil still exists today. In the years since, the DCEU saw additional hits that either failed to make a good return at the box office (Shazam and The Suicide Squad), or narrative misses that also straight up flopped (Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman 1984, The Flash, etc.).
After years of DC failure fatigue, the studio, under the leadership of David Zaslav, decided a (somewhat) fresh start was needed when it hired MCU alum James Gunn and Producer Peter Safran to captain the ship of the newly minted DCU with its own dedicated studio, something that fans have been begging for for a long time. The hope with this being that, like Marvel, the heads of the studio would have more or less free rein to do what they felt they needed to do to serve the interest of creating a consistent narrative without constant interference from the higher-ups in the way the old DCEU was plagued.
I won't go into the nature of the "soft reboot" the studio is undergoing as we don't have all the information on that just yet. But if the trailer from Peacemaker Season 2 is any indicator, I suspect some multiverse shenanigans may explain why some characters were carried over into this "new" DCU. Only time will tell on that.
Frankly, there's too much information, most of which is widely known among those who would read this article, so outside of my initial setup, I won't be diving too much more into the events that got us to Superman 2025 or what it all means as it's just one movie and it's too early to tell.
What I wish to focus on more than anything is the idea that Superman "needs to make X amount of money at the box office or all of the DCU is doomed." This brings me back to my opener. The history of the DCEU is one in which the studio was constantly chasing a billion-dollar hit every time a movie was released. If you followed the story of how that franchise was measured by its successes and failures, it was always on the basis that, unlike outliers like Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the movies were a failure because they failed to reach the high bar set by another franchise that had just entered its sophomore phase.
What I believe Gunn, Safran, and Zaslav are attempting is to chase the buildup set forth by the first Iron Man, which is what the first DC iteration should have been aiming for as well.
By setting such a high bar for themselves, the DCEU was constantly accused of, and rightly so, having little to no direction and chasing the "sure bets" (that often also failed) rather than doing the legwork the MCU did with the first Iron Man movie and Phase 1.
Why I believe this new DCU is a course correction in following the beginning MCU model as opposed to chasing a specific dollar amount is found in Gunn and Zaslav's own statements.
In an article published by The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn said, "Is there something riding on it? Yeah, but it's not as big as people make it out to be. They hear these numbers that the movie's only going to be successful if it makes $700 million or something and it's just complete and utter nonsense. It doesn't need to be as big of a situation as people are saying."
The Sunday after Superman opened, Zaslav was reported by Variety as having said, "Three years ago, I hired James Gunn and Peter Safran to reimagine and unify the creative direction of DC under one leadership team, by breathing new life and excitement into one of the most iconic storytelling franchises in the world." He went on to say, "This weekend, we watched Superman soar as James Gunn's vision and passion came to life on the big screen. Superman is just the first step. Over the next year alone, DC Studios will introduce the films 'Supergirl' and 'Clayface' in theaters and the series 'Lanterns' on HBO Max, all part of a bold 10-year plan. The DC vision is clear, the momentum is real, and I couldn't be more excited for what's ahead."
I know there will likely be those who would peoplecomments and say that these statements are all to save face or to paint a different narrative if things go downhill, and as someone who was constantly on the backfoot in hoping the DCEU would figure it out only to watch it fail miserably, I hear what you are saying and I don't disagree with you based solely on past instances.
The reason I am inclined to believe these statements is because Gunn came from Marvel and worked closely with Feige and understands the mindset, at least what used to be the mindset, over at Marvel in the earlier days. I'm willing to eat crow if in a few weeks or months we find out that the studio is once again in turmoil and Gunn is begging Feige for work again as the DCU changes course and hires a new head of studio...again.
What I hope Gunn and Safran have conveyed to Zaslav is "you just need to be consistent in creating quality content and eventually the money will come". It's up to Zaslav to either buy into the idea of short-term loss for long-term gain, or to panic when the first or second movies don't make a billion dollars.
As fans of either franchise, we need to hope that both studios focus more on what made the first few Marvel phases a success for the sake of further success, rather than relying on brand and name recognition alone to hopefully sell tickets, a crime that both franchises have been guilty of doing. This is why I don't believe Superman needs to make a billion or even 700 million dollars to be a success. The critic and audience scores being pretty well aligned is an indicator that Gunn has created a pretty decent crowd-pleaser.
I'm curious to get your opinion. Do you agree or disagree? Do you think there's something else that made Marvel successful in those early days that Gunn and Safran should also consider moving forward?