Warner Bros. executive Toby Emmerich does not think that the studio's DC movies need to tie together or set up sequels to be successful. The concept of the shared universe has been a phenomenon Hollywood has been changing ever since 2012 with the release of The Avengers. Other than the MCU, many franchises has failed to get the ball rolling like Universal's Dark Universe and it even appeared after the poor box-office reaction to Godzilla: King of the Monsters that the MonsterVerse was struggling. DC is one of the most notable examples, as they tried to kick-start their own interconnected universe after Man of Steel, which launched the DCEU, but after multiple projects failed to get off the ground and many that were released received negative reactions, it appeared DC would need to rethink their strategy.
In 2018, shortly after the disappointing box-office returns of Justice League, New Line Cinema President of Production Toby Emmerich was appointed chairman of Warner Bros. Starting under Emmerich, the DC films started to pivot to a more stand-alone model, and while projects like Aquaman were already in development, films started to focus on telling their own stories while maintaining sprinkles and hints at the larger universe like Shazam! and Birds of Prey. 2022 sees DC release five movies, and the first two released The Batman and DC League of Super-Pets, are not part of the DCEU but stand-alone projects.
With The Batman celebrating a massive $125 million opening weekend, Emmerich spoke to Deadline about the future of DC films. The executive said his concern is about making quality and not quantity, and how they don't all need easter eggs. He thinks the key to success is allowing the films all to be very different from one another. Emmerich said:
“The secret of the movie business is quality. It’s the best business strategy for both theatrical motion pictures and superhero movies. The movies don’t have to all have the same tone, or interlock with other DC movies, or have an Easter egg that sets up another film. Quality is the most important factor for a studio, and the biggest thing you can do to influence quality is the filmmaker that you hire.”
Despite this, it doesn't appear DC is abandoning a cinematic universe entirely as The Flash seems to be resetting the entire DCEU to something more streamlined. Michael Keaton's version of Batman, who is set to appear in The Flash, will also appear in Batgirl, which is set in the DCEU. Peacemaker was a spin-off of The Suicide Squad film and even featured cameos from the Justice League with Jason Momoa Aquaman and Ezra Miller's Flash appearing in person. Even the stand-alone projects like The Batman has easter eggs for fans that could set up future films, but it appears the overriding principle is to make each film work first and figure out how to connect them later.
While Marvel Studios' method of making a complex interconnected universe has worked wonders for them by making audiences think they need to see every film to understand all of them and therefore propelling lesser-known characters like Ant-Man and Doctor Strange to icon status, it is not the only way to tell superhero stories. The Dark Knight trilogy was not setting up a larger universe and didn't even set up sequels for themselves and were massive hits. DC has a number of projects in development, like a Zatanna movie, a Wonder Twins film, and even a Black Superman adventure, showing the studio is trying many different types of projects. Warner Bros. and DC don't need to copy Marvel's business strategy but need to copy their ability to create characters and stories that connect with an audience, and it appears they may have learned the right lesson.
Source: Deadline
