DC Superheroes to Get 10-Year MCU-Style Plan, No Direct-to-Streaming Films

The past few years have resulted in a very mixed bag for DC superhero fans. We’ve seen Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, and Robert Pattinson sharing their takes on Batman. Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger won Academy Awards for two very different Jokers. Jared Leto became a punchline for his “Suicide Squad” take on the clown prince of crime. The DC universe has offered films that are silly or scary, light or dark, standalone or seemingly connected. Even a film like “Justice League” was essentially made twice, with very different outcomes.

If Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is to be believed, those days are over. The company has a team working on a 10-year plan for the DC superhero group. Each movie will be released theatrically, with none of them going direct-to-streaming.

During the company’s Q2 earnings call, Zaslav could barely hide his disdain for the state of the franchise.

“We think that we could build a long-term much stronger, sustainable growth business out of DC,” Zaslav said. “And as part of that, we’re going to focus on quality, we’re not going to release any film before it’s ready, we’re not going to release a film to make a quarter. The focus is going to be: how do we make each of these films… as good as possible? But DC is something that we think we could make better and we’re focused on it now. “

“We have some great DC films coming up: 'Black Adam,' 'Shazam,' and 'Flash.' And we’re working on all of those, we’re very excited about him. We’ve seen them, we think they’re terrific. And we think we can make them even better.”

Zaslav addressed the now-canceled “Batgirl” and “Wonder Twins” projects. “We’re not going to put a movie out unless we believe in it. And that’s it. I mean particularly with DC where we think we want to pivot and we want to elevate and we want to focus,” Zaslav said.

Is it possible to replicate the outsized success of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe? It’s impossible to say, but Marvel had the benefit of Jon Favreau setting the tone with 2008’s “Iron Man” and the careful stewardship of Kevin Feige as the various franchises built toward the apex of “Avengers: Endgame.” Even the MCU may be showing some wear and tear in the post-Thanos era, with some franchise fatigue setting in as Disney+ milks the genre with so many limited series.

If Warner Bros. Discovery has the right team and can give them enough leeway to find their stride, we could be entering the next great era of superhero films. But given the history of David Zaslav, the cash register will matter significantly more than the critical reception.

“Our job is to protect the DC brand,” Zaslav said, “and that’s what we’re gonna do.”