The release of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom marked the end of the DC Extended Universe otherwise known as the DCEU on December 22, 2023. This was the 15th film in a cinematic universe which produced movies that ranged from successful to plain out box office failures. But how did a cinematic universe that consisted of characters such as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman end up heavily underachieving and ultimately failing at its goal to rival the much more successful Marvel Cinematic Universe? To understand that question, one must first start from the beginning.
On June 14, 2013, the heavily anticipated Man of Steel was released in theaters which officially marked the beginning of the DCEU. Interestingly however, that was not supposed to be the case as DC actually wanted 2011’s Green Lantern to be the first movie in their cinematic universe after viewing the success Marvel was having with their cinematic universe. Unfortunately for them, Green Lantern failed at the box office which caused them to take a different approach to starting their cinematic universe. Enter Man of Steel, which while ultimately succeeding at the box office, showed signs of problems that would later plague this cinematic universe.
While the director, Zack Snyder, was able to give fans a modernized Superman that heavily differed from the most likely outdated portrayals by Christopher Reeves or Brandon Routh, he showed a clear misunderstanding of the iconic character. This was most evident at the end of the movie where Superman, portrayed by Henry Cavill, killed the villain of the movie, General Zod, by snapping his neck. Most die-hard DC fans felt as if it was a bad representation of the characters as in the comics, Superman is almost always against killing and would always look for another way. Superman is supposed to be a beacon of hope and instead, Snyder made him a symbol of chaos that destroyed nearly half of Metropolis fighting General Zod. This misunderstanding of core DC characters would, unfortunately, continue onto the next movie in the DCEU.
The next movie in the DCEU was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice which was released on March 25, 2016. If fans felt as if Snyder’s Superman was portrayed poorly in his movie, they would be twice as disappointed at the portrayal of Batman in this movie. Batman v Superman mostly focuses on Batman feeling as if Superman was a threat to humanity due to his godlike abilities. This coupled with manipulation by Lex Luthor caused Batman to set out to kill Superman. This was the point where fans started to really resent Snyder’s version of these characters.
The reason why most fans did not align with Snyder’s vision of this version of Batman is due to the fact that it is made VERY clear in the comics that Batman does not kill. It is also made very clear in the comics that Batman does not use guns which didn’t stop Snyder from showing visions of an apocalyptic future that showed Batman with a gun killing people. To make a comparison to Marvel, it was as if a movie made about Spider-Man showed Spider-Man witnessing someone get robbed at gunpoint and just swing away. It is just something Spider-Man would never do. This was a complete misunderstanding of Batman which caused the movie to not make as much money as a movie with Batman and Superman should have made on paper.
The next two movies in the DCEU which were not directed by Snyder was 2016’s Suicide Squad and 2017’s Wonder Woman. Suicide Squad unfortunately did not do well at the box office mostly due to reshoots and different visions from different directors. Fortunately for DC however Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot, was a huge success at the box office making $824 million. It was also arguably the first character that the DCEU was able to successfully bring to live action as this portrayal of Wonder Woman was very well received by fans. Unfortunately for DC however the success of Wonder Woman would not continue into the next movie.
The last movie that Snyder would make for the DCEU was tragically cut short due to his daughter dying during the production of the movie, Snyder left the project before it was completed. DC would then go on to bring Joss Wheden, who directed the very successful MCU film Marvel’s Avengers, to finish the movie. It was very clear however that Snyder and Wheden had very different visions for the movie as Wheden reshot most of the scenes that Snyder shot which ultimately caused a disaster of a movie. The movie, Justice League, failed at the box office and also caused behind-the-scenes issues between the director and actors such as Gal Gadot and Josh Fisher. Fisher even went as far as saying that he would never portray the character Cyborg again unless Snyder was the director. This caused DC to take a different approach to how to continue their cinematic universe.
DC’s new approach ended up working very well for them with their next movie, Aquaman, which made $1 billion in the box office. It was a movie that while slightly differing from the source material, put the character of Aquaman in a great light that was clearly well received by fans. And while it was to a lesser extent, their next movie, Shazam!, also did well at the box office. Despite their next movie, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), being mostly forgettable, it was not completely DC’s fault as it was released during the pandemic when many theaters were closed. This was also true but to a lesser extent with Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman as it was recognized as one of if not the worst movies in superhero media.
As mentioned before, Zack Snyder’s vision for the DCEU was not received well by many but that does not mean that he didn’t have his supporters. In fact, there was even a trend on Twitter during 2021 that tried to persuade DC to allow Snyder to finish his original vision for Justice League with a hashtag: RestoreTheSnyderVerse. Fortunately for Snyder’s fans, they were able to get what they wanted as Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released on HBO Max in 2021, although it was made very clear that it was not canon to the DCEU.
The last successful film for the DCEU was The Suicide Squad which was a sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad. Although it didn’t do well at the box office (mostly due to the pandemic) it was mostly received well by fans as it was simultaneously released on the HBO Max streaming service even though it was nothing to write home about. The next two movies that were released, Black Adam in 2022 and Shazam! Fury of the Gods in 2023, shared the same fate as most of the movies in this cinematic universe and failed at the box office. DC couldn’t go anywhere but up at this point, which is what they heavily attempted to do after hiring two new heads of their studios.
In 2022, DC announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran would be the two new heads of DC Studios and their first order of business was to plan out how they were going to fix the DCEU. They went on to announce that they would be rebooting the entire universe and renaming it the DCU along with announcing a ten-year plan to fix the universe. However, there were three more films that were in production during this time, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom which were all released in 2023 with mixed reviews. In a similar situation to The Suicide Squad, the movies weren’t terrible but at the same time, they were nothing to write home about.
Now that the DCEU is over and the DCU has come to take its place, DC has a chance to start fresh and succeed where its previous cinematic universe failed. The first movie that will be released in the DCU is Superman which is planned to be released in 2025. This movie without a doubt has a lot of pressure to be a successful one as it will most likely determine how the rest of this cinematic universe will shape up.
