James Gunn's 10-Year DCU Plan: Good Idea or Huge Mistake? We Discuss
The DC Universe plan is almost complete! This week Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran are “coming close to the end” of finishing a DC bible that will outline the roadmap for DC Studios. But is this a good idea? CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor Sean O’Connell is worried a DC Bible could trap DC Studios into some of the same mistakes Marvel Studios made. In this video, he discusses the pros and cons with CinemaBlend’s Hannah Saulic.
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00:00 We actually finally have a plan.
00:01 We have a plan.
00:03 Welcome back, everybody.
00:12 It's Hannah Sollack, the head of video here at Cinema Blend with Sean O'Connell,
00:15 our managing editor, who's got a hot take about some DC Studios news.
00:20 So, Sean, I'm going to throw it over to you.
00:22 Well, I have a Marvel T-shirt on, too, which I just realized means
00:25 I'm going to get slaughtered by the people who are watching.
00:28 I can't really talk to you when you look like this.
00:31 All right. So James Gunn talked about the the DC Bible.
00:34 No.
00:34 Well, actually, he didn't talk about it. I'm sorry.
00:36 It was David Zaslav, who's the head of Warner Brothers, and mentioned
00:40 that Peter Safran and James Gunn are almost near the end of mapping out
00:44 what they're calling the DC Bible, which for people who are not in the know,
00:48 this is like a roadmap for a studio going forward.
00:51 And I think my hot take is that is the worst news
00:55 you could have possibly told me for DC.
00:57 Controversy. Into it.
00:59 Because a DC Bible is just mimicking what Marvel did,
01:03 and it's learning none of the lessons from the mistakes
01:07 that Marvel made over the course of building their shared universe.
01:10 I am baffled that you would have this opinion,
01:14 because we've been talking for so long about how, like, the number one problem
01:17 with DC and why it can't find an audience and compete with Marvel on the big screen
01:21 and, well, I guess now with television and like the plugged in stuff
01:25 is because it doesn't have that sort of shared universe.
01:27 There's no plan. There's no overall vision.
01:29 Like, you know, movies like Black Adam, you can tell that they're just kind of
01:32 like pieced together from different potential plans that they've had in the past.
01:36 They're messes.
01:37 I agree. Yeah.
01:38 OK, I guess walk me through in more detail
01:44 what the cons are of this that you think failed Marvel so bad that DC should be warned.
01:49 No, no, no. Here's the thing.
01:51 Marvel pulled it off with a shared universe, but I will stand by the fact
01:56 that I think that they were extremely lucky and that planning too far in advance
02:01 only locks you in when things could potentially go wrong.
02:05 The problem with DC isn't necessarily that they don't have a clear path forward
02:10 or a strong sense of a shared universe.
02:12 It's that they make bad movies.
02:14 Don't let me hurt you.
02:15 I think that the best movies that have come out of DC recently
02:18 have been the Suicide Squad that James Gunn made,
02:21 which isn't connected to anything else.
02:23 But and then they were able to branch Peacemaker out of that
02:26 because they realized that James Gunn liked working with John Cena.
02:31 But it wasn't part of a 10 year plan.
02:33 It wasn't part of the DC Bible.
02:35 It was a reaction to the fact that the Suicide Squad movie did well.
02:38 So let's try this new character in a TV in a TV series
02:41 or something like Matt Reeves' Batman.
02:43 Or sorry, go ahead.
02:44 Oh, I was saying something like Matt Reeves' Batman
02:47 or something like Todd Phillips' Joker.
02:49 I more support the idea.
02:51 Now, maybe this DC Bible that they're talking about means,
02:53 you know, one off projects and characters they want to focus on
02:57 and not a big shared universe.
02:59 But I think the DC made a mistake a while back
03:03 when they revealed this 10 film slate.
03:06 Like, here's what the next 10 years of DC are going to be.
03:09 And I think we've made three of those movies, you know, so don't.
03:13 What I'm saying is with a DC Bible,
03:15 I don't want it to put the cart way before the horse and say,
03:19 here's what we're doing for the next 10 years,
03:21 because I just think that that creates
03:23 you're like setting yourself in stone on a path that might not happen.
03:28 You have to give yourself the ability to sort of wiggle and pivot.
03:30 So you're less against the idea of a plan and more against
03:34 the idea of locking yourself into specific projects.
03:37 I want to understand.
03:39 Sure, of course.
03:40 Like, I would love for them to have some sort of vision.
03:42 If you're out here saying you want no plan, like nothing.
03:45 I'm like, Sean, are you OK?
03:47 No, no, no. I understand.
03:48 But but like the idea, like calling it the DC Bible concerns me a lot.
03:53 Right. Because this that suggests to me and again,
03:56 we may hear what their Bible is and it could be like, oh, yeah,
03:59 that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
04:01 But if they're sitting down trying to map out a roadmap for the next 10 years,
04:04 I just don't think you can plan 10 years out.
04:08 And, you know, Marvel is to keep comparing it.
04:12 And I hate to keep doing that.
04:13 But they're sort of feeling the repercussions of that right now.
04:15 Like phase four is kind of a mess because it doesn't have the
04:20 we're building towards something the way phases one through three did.
04:23 And now they're locked into a shared universe where people go into these movies
04:27 and wait for them to connect somehow.
04:28 Or how is this going to branch into this?
04:30 And where's that character going to go there?
04:32 And like Black Panther, Wakanda forever had a really solid
04:36 a number of elements to it.
04:37 But the things to me that didn't really work so well was like
04:39 having to include Riri Williams because she's going to be part of Iron Heart later
04:43 or constantly cutting back to Everett Ross and and Julie Louis Dreyfuss
04:48 because, you know, they're going to be part of Thunderbolts in a bit.
04:50 Like just make good movies.
04:51 Just make good, solid movies.
04:53 And the Bible says good movies.
04:55 I think that with Marvel specifically, like Kevin Feige is only one person.
05:00 And like he was spending so much of his energy on the Infinity Saga,
05:03 which we're all talking about, is like the great blueprint for what DC is trying to do.
05:07 But like to me, phase four has almost just felt like, OK,
05:11 obviously Marvel needs to like keep producing content.
05:15 Kevin Feige was probably a little bit burnt out.
05:17 He was probably just like, yeah, let's get another Thor movie going.
05:20 We're obviously going to have a Black Panther sequel.
05:22 Like to me, that kind of seemed almost like he needs to go rest a little bit.
05:25 It's fine.
05:26 And now we're coming back with like building to secret,
05:32 like I know that that's like, but he is a human, you know?
05:35 You know what the problem with the metahuman is?
05:37 The human part.
05:38 OK, yeah.
05:40 There are still a bunch of questions that need to be answered
05:43 before you dive into this "Bible," quote unquote,
05:46 which is you have another universe over here.
05:49 You know, you have the Matt Reeves universe that's happening.
05:52 You do have a Joker sequel that has been announced.
05:54 You bring back someone like Henry Cavill.
05:56 Like, which path forward are we doing here?
05:59 Or is the Bible going to suggest that like DC is going to be a studio
06:03 where multiple threads can exist and they don't have to cross over?
06:06 I could totally see that. That's a possibility.
06:08 Because like I was trying to find what this Hollywood Reporter article,
06:12 what it exactly said, and they define the Bible for DC
06:17 as being just a road map that outlines key characters and plot points.
06:22 So like if they're doing that and not necessarily saying like,
06:27 and then we're going to have this movie on this year,
06:29 it's followed by this TV show with these people.
06:32 Like, yes, I totally agree.
06:33 Like we've seen Marvel change their slate.
06:35 How many times at this point,
06:36 especially with COVID and release dates getting pushed back and,
06:39 you know, the verse of madness was what, like rewritten on set?
06:43 Because yes, potentially like everything.
06:46 Or like the Mahershala Ali Blade movie that got announced three years ago.
06:51 You know, the report that came out recently was,
06:54 oh, we don't have a script for that yet.
06:56 Like what the hell?
06:56 You cast Blade and you don't even really have.
06:59 So I am really against announcing titles well in advance
07:04 because I just think that there are too many variables that can factor in
07:06 that can screw up even the best intentions and plans.
07:09 Are you against, so like Walter Hamada, before he left, was like talking
07:13 after Batgirl got canceled, he said something like he wanted to do
07:16 like Crisis on Infinite Earths.
07:18 That's what they were trying to build towards.
07:20 Are you against like announcements like that?
07:22 Or it's just like, hey, we want to build toward this thing.
07:25 Like, do you think that that's revealing too much?
07:27 Because I guess like we should take this more from like,
07:30 like we don't know what the DC Bible is.
07:32 Like James Gunn and Peter Saffron have not released that.
07:34 But just from an industry's perspective and like an audience perspective,
07:39 like, do you think that shifts any sort of general interest
07:42 or gets more casual fans excited to see some of these movies?
07:45 Like, I have so many questions.
07:47 I think you could do it.
07:49 Let's use Crisis as an example.
07:50 If you tell me that, like for the next five years, the DC
07:54 outlets, because when James Gunn talked about, you know, moving
07:58 the big story forward, he included television and animation,
08:02 and he wanted them all sort of flowing in the same direction.
08:04 So let's say that they come out with an announcement early next year
08:07 where they're like, hey, for the next five years, all the DC
08:10 titles are going to be building towards this this big crossover event.
08:15 Crisis on Infinite Earths, right?
08:18 I'm all in on that.
08:19 Like that to me seems tenable.
08:21 But if the Bible is like for the next 20 years,
08:24 we're going to be doing so and so and so and so.
08:27 Not something I asked for!
08:28 That ignores what audience reaction is.
08:30 Yeah. You know, because so much of that is fueled by whether people
08:33 respond to characters or not.
08:34 Well, look what happened with Zack Snyder's plan, you know?
08:36 Exactly. Yeah, that's a perfect example.
08:40 And or even like a group like the Eternals.
08:42 You know, what if Marvel said, like, we're doing three Eternals movies
08:46 and we're going to shove them down your throat?
08:48 And then Eternals played and people were like, well, they were all right.
08:51 You know, they're gone. They're off the table now.
08:53 So pre-planning that far in advance for any studio, I think, is a mistake.
08:57 Yeah, I agree with that.
08:59 So I'll take back some of my initial.
09:01 But I do think there's a world in which this D.C.
09:05 Bible, like the main question, I think that they need to answer,
09:09 which they probably already answered in their pitch to get these jobs.
09:12 So like, sure, whatever the D.C.
09:13 Bible is, I'm sure has been in the works since like James Gunn
09:16 worked on The Suicide Squad.
09:17 Like he didn't come up with this in the past two weeks.
09:19 I think there's a world in which the D.C.
09:23 Bible right now could just be, hey, we're going to give Reeves
09:27 his own trilogy.
09:28 There's going to be some spin off TV shows that focus on these characters.
09:31 And we want to bring more of the Bat family into the Reevesverse.
09:34 And like, hey, the D.C.
09:35 EU that, you know, it that's now the D.C.
09:37 You like here are the characters that are continuing on,
09:40 maybe sort of not directly answering the question of like, what timeline
09:45 are we in, especially with the flash coming out?
09:46 And apparently that's what's just break out all the time.
09:48 Like, I think whatever this Bible is might just be
09:52 let's kind of reset and like not like start fresh,
09:57 because I don't personally see a world where like
09:59 they're not using some of the characters that the Snyderverse set up.
10:02 Like you don't just like not use Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman anymore.
10:05 Like that doesn't make sense.
10:07 Well, what?
10:08 Let me float out something that I've heard
10:11 from sources that I don't know yet to be trustworthy.
10:17 OK.
10:18 So I'm just going to throw this out there.
10:21 But take it with great assumption.
10:23 Yeah. Know that what I'm saying this, I've heard this,
10:26 but I don't know how reliable it is.
10:28 I've heard that one of the plans for DC
10:32 is to do a hard reset.
10:34 Let's let the films that have been filmed play out,
10:37 which would be essentially Shazam, Fury of the Gods,
10:41 The Flash, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Blue Beetle.
10:45 Blue Beetle is still going to come out.
10:47 And then following that, you get a hard reset.
10:49 And by hard reset, what I was told in the course of this
10:54 is that includes Henry Cavill's Superman, like that that is going to be a cameo
10:57 that doesn't pay off.
10:59 No, no.
11:00 But what about what The Rock and they were all teasing?
11:03 Oh, that's do you think there's like controversy?
11:06 Like, do you think James Gunn was part of the Henry Cavill Superman
11:09 negotiations for Black Adam?
11:12 Because I would have imagined.
11:13 No, you don't think he was involved that way?
11:15 I don't think so.
11:16 No, I think that that had been going on for several years
11:19 between Rock and the previous regime
11:24 at Warner Brothers and Henry's team.
11:27 But no, I don't think that Gunn was behind, like signing off on that.
11:31 I mean, that may.
11:33 And then, you know, Black Adam didn't blow the doors off of,
11:36 you know, Black Adam wasn't demanding like, holy shit,
11:39 we got to make five more of these.
11:40 Well, and there is just so much.
11:42 I'm not saying I'm for or against this.
11:43 I'm just exploring this thought.
11:46 There's so much baggage with these characters
11:48 and especially with like DC fans about like, you know,
11:51 movies that were supposed to come to fruition that didn't and visions change
11:55 and all that stuff that like I could see a world where James Gunn,
11:58 who's like a very specific creative voice, wants to just say like,
12:01 I'm doing my thing.
12:02 But then that's complicated because like he's well, I don't know.
12:06 But like, I don't see a world where he's not going to have Margot Robbie's
12:09 Harley Quinn, right?
12:11 Like what? No, don't tell me that.
12:14 Are you the devil?
12:16 I mean, personal preferences aside, there's a possibility that
12:20 because again, Hannah, we run into the situation of these actors
12:23 can't play these characters forever.
12:24 Yeah. You know, and that these movies take minimum two to three years
12:28 to put together.
12:29 And after a while, like who can keep playing the version of the character
12:32 that you love to see them do?
12:33 And do they want to be trapped in that scenario forever?
12:36 I'm not quite sure.
12:38 The realistic side of this type of storytelling gets in the way
12:41 of long term planning because actors age out.
12:45 And, you know, you do need to sort of bring in a fresh crop of new people.
12:49 It's easier on television when you can sort of go with a younger cast
12:53 and and maybe burn through two or three seasons
12:56 where you're telling a lot of story time.
12:58 But these feature films take a long time to be put together.
13:01 OK, but like, go call Kathleen Kennedy and ask her about...
13:04 For like 12 years and it was fine or whatever, however long it was.
13:07 I don't know.
13:08 OK, but how many years of that was Downey in a green screen room
13:13 so that you just saw his head in the mask kind of thing?
13:16 You know, they're all aging out.
13:18 They're all aging out.
13:19 It was CGI and voiceover.
13:21 Yeah.
13:22 Well, now I'm depressed.
13:24 Well, and I don't know if that rumor is true.
13:26 That rumor may not be true at all, but
13:28 it comes back down to, you know, is is the foundation of DC
13:33 already laid with these actors and James Gunn is building up from that?
13:37 Or is James Gunn want to start fresh and and plan out
13:41 the next few years with people that he's cast and brought in?
13:44 It's very tricky.
13:45 Like, I'm thinking about that just from my creative decisions
13:48 that I have to make, like as part of this job.
13:50 And that's a very tough spot to be in that I could...
13:54 Impossible.
13:55 I can recommend a good therapist.
13:56 But let us know what you guys think.
13:59 Are you all in on DC Bible?
14:01 Do you want to see a 10 year plan?
14:03 Let us know.
14:04 While you're down there, hit subscribe, turn on your notifications.
14:06 Hannah and I love talking about DC, and we want to make sure that you guys come
14:09 and watch all of the videos that we do discussing the future of the DC universe.
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