DC Is Now Copying Sony’s Failed Superhero Formula

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 19 seconds ago

Okay, confession time: long before Supergirl became a critical and commercial bomb, I lauded the DCU as a worthy successor to the MCU. Marvel’s formula had gotten tired and stale, and superhero fatigue seemed like it would be the kiss of death for the House of Ideas. By comparison, Superman seemed like a fresh take on building a cinematic universe from the ground up. Directed by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, Superman was a powerful counterpoint to everyone’s collective cynicism, proving that the world was downright hungry for colorful comic book movies built on a foundation of relentless hope for a better tomorrow. 

Gunn kept the momentum up with Peacemaker Season 2, which proved to be a smash hit. However, Supergirl (directed by Craig Gillespie, who is clearly aping Gunn’s style) has proven to be an instant misfire for the studio: it’s been deemed “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s currently set to lose the studio a whopping $125 million. Now, as if doubling down on failure, DC is hard at work on a Deathstroke and Bane team-up movie. Instead of blazing their own successful trail, it seems like Gunn is content to rip off Sony’s failed supervillain formula, making multiple movies around Batman bad guys before making a Batman movie!

Somehow, Morbin’ Time Returned

Back in the ‘90s, Marvel was going bankrupt, and the company stayed afloat by selling the film rights to some of their most popular characters. This included selling both the X-Men and the Fantastic Four rights to 20th Century Fox; after a merger, those characters are now fair game for the MCU. But they sold Spider-Man to Sony, which has clung to those film rights for dear life. Now, when the hero appears in a Marvel Studios blockbuster like Spider-Man: Brand New Day, he can only do so after extensive negotiations and complex agreements with Sony. As for Sony, they now avoid releasing live-action Spider-Man movies of their own.

Instead, they embraced the utterly insane strategy of releasing movies focusing on Spider-Man’s villains, not. That’s how we got films dedicated to Venom, Morbius, and Kraven the Hunter. He was similarly absent from the Madame Web movie. Notably, only the Venom movies were a success, and everything else was a critical and commercial flop. The lesson there is simple: audiences don’t want Spider-Man movies that don’t have Spider-Man in them. Simple, right? Now, however, Deadline reports that periodic Peacemaker director Greg Mottola is the frontrunner to direct Deathstroke and Bane, a film teaming up two of Batman’s villains. There’s just one problem…the DCU doesn’t have a Batman for them to fight!

It’s Happening Again

Deathstroke and Bane doesn’t yet have a release date, and no contracts have been signed. So there’s a chance it will come out after Batman has been introduced to the DCU. However, it seems bad that we have heard so few definitive announcements about The Brave and the Bold, Batman’s first film in this cinematic universe. Aside from rumors, we don’t know for sure who will be playing the Caped Crusader or who will direct the movie. However, the Clayface movie has already been filmed, and it seems like Deathstroke and Bane is about to have its director announced. That leaves one question for James Gunn: what the heck are you doing?

DC Studios co-CEO Gunn is cheerfully replicating Sony’s failed formula and trying to introduce an entire rogue’s gallery of Batman villains via movies that won’t actually have Batman in them. Before this past weekend, I would have assumed that Gunn, a fan-favorite director, had some kind of vision for his cinematic universe that I just couldn’t see or understand. But he championed Supergirl’s script and moved that film’s production up, yet it became a critical and commercial bomb. That film is set to lose $125 million, and one reason for this is that Supergirl is a less familiar character. How much worse will the box office be when freakin’ Deathstroke and Bane are the headliners? 

There’s an outside chance this strategy could work. Maybe DCU fans will glom onto Bane, Clayface, and Deathstroke the way that Sony fans glommed onto Venom. But James Gunn is making an absolutely crazy roll of the dice by pairing weird, unpopular characters on the big screen. He’s doing it on the small screen, too, by greenlighting insanity like the Jimmy Olsen/Gorilla Grodd TV show. Should these projects prove successful, Gunn will be lauded as a visionary who built a winning cinematic universe, one quirk at a time. Should they bomb like Supergirl, though, his career will implode, taking all of your favorite DC film and TV projects along with it.