The saga of Warner Bros. Discovery’s internal shake-up has made a massive impact on the future of the DCEU, and it may not be over yet. Amid the cancelation of Batgirl and replacement of Michael Keaton’s cameo appearance in Aquaman 2, there have been some seemingly wild rumors that there is now a possibility of the whole DCEU being scrapped and restarted from scratch and new dates being considered for two of its big upcoming movies.
Currently, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is set to arrive in cinemas this December after being pulled forward from 2023. This will be followed by Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which was previously pushed back from this year’s December slot to March 2023. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is completed and is said to be ready to go, while Aquaman 2 is now in post-production, but it seems that neither of them may end up releasing on their current dates as changes at Warner Bros. continue to filter through.
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Of course, these are just rumors for now, but with the DCEU being a very disjointed affair, and Warner Bros. Discovery clearly moving away from flashy superhero movies a little with the announcement of Joker: Folie a Deux, the sequel to Joaquin Phoenix’s hit turn as Batman’s nemesis, and the additional sequels and spin-offs being planned for Matt Reeves’ The Batman, the DCEU could be on very shaky ground in its current form.
The DCEU Has Been Plagued With Problems From the Start
Comparisons between Warner Bros. DCEU and Disney/Marvel Studios’ MCU are unavoidable due to the rivalry of the two comic book giants that the movie universes are based on. While it may be sometimes unfair to directly look at the franchises side by side, Marvel has seemed to produce their multi-movie saga in a completely different and more successful way than their counterpart.
While Marvel took several movies to build up to their first Avengers movie, Warner Bros. skipped much of the legwork by jumping from Man of Steel, to Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, straight to Justice League, with multiple major characters appearing with only very brief introductions. Of course, the big collaborative movie didn’t quite go according to plan, with Zack Snyder having to leave the production and Joss Whedon changing a lot about the film, and that was where much of the damage was done that is still being felt now.
Now with personal issues surrounding stars of both Aquaman 2 and The Flash, Warner Bros. is once again finding themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. According to new reports, initial tests for The Flash, which will now be the first appearance of Michael Keaton in the DCEU, have been positive, which will be a little bit of a boost for the beleaguered studio, but with almost a year until the movie is released, the real question is whether Ezra Miller’s personal problems are now over or whether they could end up derailing what seems to be one of Warner Bros. only chances of DCEU redemption.
