Warner Bros. Should Announce New DC Slate at Comic-Con

Warner Bros. should take advantage of San Diego Comic-Con 2018 to announce their new slate. The nascent DCEU had something of a troubled start, in large part because of major PR problems. Warner Bros. struggled to set a narrative, with insiders spending most of their time fighting rumors. Meanwhile, the studio also missed major opportunities to generate excitement for their films. While Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was announced at SDCC 2013, the rest of that early slate was actually announced in an offhand manner during an investors' call.

Things seem to have improved markedly over the last year. Warner Bros. has completed another corporate restructure of DC Films, with Walter Hamada appointed to oversee the superhero franchises. Geoff Johns has bowed out of his executive role as president of DC Films, and has returned to the creative roles that he loves, signing up as writer and producer of the upcoming Green Lantern Corps movie. Aquaman, Shazam!, and Wonder Woman 1984 are all in the works, and none of them have been plagued by any rumors of behind-the-scenes drama. It really does feel as though Warner Bros. has turned a corner.

But there's still one real problem; we have no idea what the future slate actually looks like. Warner Bros. has a mind-boggling number of ideas apparently in the early stages of pre-production, and as a result viewers can't work out where the franchise is going, or what future films to get excited about in the first place. Reflecting on the current state of the DCEU, Avengers: Infinity War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely summed it up well; "There's a lot of spaghetti being thrown at the wall." SDCC 2018 would be the perfect opportunity for DC Films to give some clarity about their plans.

This Page: What DCEU Films are in Development?
Next Page: SDCC 2018 is the Perfect Chance for Clarity

Every DCEU Movie in Development

Aquaman is due out in December this year, with a major marketing push set to launch at SDCC. It will be followed by Shazam!, due out in April next year, and Wonder Woman 1984, scheduled for November 2019. Looking beyond that, though, the future is a mystery. Margot Robbie has recently revealed that Birds of Prey will begin filming in January next year, presumably meaning that Warner Bros. hope for a 2020 release. But that's not been officially announced; rather, we've learned it from a flow of rumors and an excited comment from one of the stars, while she was out promoting another film. Given Geoff Johns is working on Green Lantern Corps, it's possible that movie is still intended to drop in 2020 as well; but that's just an assumption. It could quite easily have been pushed back.

But what of all the other movies that we've heard mentioned? Warner Bros. has previously assigned 2020 release dates for a number of films, ranging from Flashpoint to Suicide Squad 2. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein signed up for Flashpoint in February, but there's been no news of this film since then. It's likely that Gotham City Sirens, Suicide Squad 2 and the Joker/Harley Quinn movies are on hold due to Robbie's commitment to Birds of Prey, but that's just an assumption; in fact, it's even possible that Gotham City Sirens has been dropped, as there are rumors the project has actually been blended with Birds of Prey.

Pre-production seems to be continuing for Justice League Dark, but both Cyborg and Batgirl could easily have been dropped from the DCEU slate altogether. And it's currently unknown whether or not The Batman will even be set in the DCEU at all, with persistent rumors that Ben Affleck is leaving the franchise. Meanwhile, in January a rumored slate suggested Warner Bros. is looking at films like Man of Steel 2 and Nightwing, two ideas that have come from the left-field.

The truth is that, right now, it's impossible to say what the future of the DCEU actually looks like. The news that Warner Bros. is proceeding with a low-budget, R-rated Birds of Prey film may be the first solid indicator we've had of the franchise's direction, suggesting the DCEU will diversify from a diet of tentpole movies to embrace more genre films - an approach that has worked well for Fox, who have seen successes in this vein like Logan and Deadpool. But, again, these aren't official announcements; they're inferences we can draw from the drip-feed of information. Warner Bros. seem to have stopped almost all of the negative rumors that previously beset the DCEU, but it's time to generate some hype by announcing an actual upcoming slate.

Page 2: SDCC 2018 is the Perfect Chance for Clarity

What We Know About the Warner Bros. Comic-Con Panel

Viewers are already excited about the Warner Bros. Hall H panel, which kicks off on Saturday, July 21 at 10:30am. Warner Bros. has just begun the main marketing push for Aquaman, and director James Wan has confirmed that the first trailer will drop at SDCC. The trailer was screened at the European film exhibitors’ conference CineEurope in Barcelona last month, and received a positive reaction from all in attendance. Images so far have promised a powerful, atmospheric film unlike anything we've seen in the DCEU to date, and the trailer drop will give fans a chance to actually evaluate the film properly. The positive vibes have left viewers hoping this will be another tremendous success for the DCEU, reinforcing the narrative that Warner Bros. has moved on from the franchise's troubled beginnings.

In addition, Shazam! director David F. Sandberg has teased that he'll be making an appearance during the panel too. There are persistent rumors that Warner Bros. will drop first footage of Shazam! at Hall H, a first taste of a film that seems far more humorous than the rest of the DCEU fare. There are even rumors we'll get another trailer drop. While the tone and style of Shazam! promises to be quite distinctive - the first poster showed the hero enjoying a soft drink - again there's been a positive buzz about the film, and there have been no hints of the behind-the-scenes drama that plagued earlier DCEU films.

Finally, there are also rumors that some of the cast and crew of Wonder Woman 1984 will drop by. It's too soon for any footage, given the movie just started shooting last month, but director Patty Jenkins is a firm believer in fan engagement. So it wouldn't be a surprise to see both Jenkins and star Gal Gadot in attendance.

Warner Bros. Need to Clarify the DCEU's Future

DC Upcoming Movies with Wonder Woman Aquaman and Shazam

It's clear that the Warner Bros. panel is going to focus substantially on the DCEU, so this would be the perfect opportunity for the studio to explain just where the franchise is going. We're not arguing that DC Films should present a slate running through the next four or five years, akin to Marvel's Phase 3 announcement back in 2014; in actual fact, Kevin Feige seems to consider that announcement to have backfired, as it led viewers to get distracted by longer-term ideas rather than appreciate each film as it came out. But it wouldn't hurt for DC Films to explain their priorities, give a sense of their future direction, and maybe explain what the next two or three years' worth of DC superhero movies will look like.

SDCC 2018 is a unique opportunity for Warner Bros. to set the narrative, explaining just what's in store for the DCEU. They can outline the franchise's future direction, explicitly stating it rather than leaving viewers to deduce it from the latest rumors. The studio can put to bed rumors that are ill-founded, perhaps either confirming that Affleck will stick around, or bidding him farewell. They can clarify the relationship between certain projects, perhaps explaining if films like Cyborg or Suicide Squad 2 are still in the works in the short-to-medium term. In short, this is a chance to provide clarity about the DCEU's future, dispelling all the rumors, and giving audiences an official statement rather than a drip-feed of (often contradictory) news.

The first DCEU slate was revealed in a strange, offhand manner, when Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara announced them to investors. Contrast that with Marvel's Phase 3 announcement, which was touted as an event in itself. It's well past time for Warner Bros. to make waves in a similar way, and wow viewers with their creative vision. According to AT&T executive John Stankey, who's taken over WarnerMedia in the aftermath of the AT&T purchase, the DCEU is "trending the right direction in terms of the quality of the product and how the franchise is being managed." It's time for Warner Bros. to demonstrate that to the world, and an official slate announcement at SDCC would be the perfect high-profile way to accomplish that.