Way back when Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was first announced, many fans questioned whether or not it was always planned over at Warner Bros. After all, there wasn’t so much as a single mention of the Dark Knight in Man of Steel, whereas the movie which followed that was packed full of world building as the studio seemingly tried to rush into both Justice League and a shared universe full of superheroes.
Now, in a recent interview with ComicBook.com, DCEU producer Charles Roven has revealed that creating this world was always the plan, right from the very start.
“When we started with Man of Steel, we knew that we were going to expand the universe. From the moment that we started with Man of Steel, we knew that once we opened up the Superman … You can’t do Superman without talking about aliens existing in our universe. We knew that we were going to have to really consider what the world building would be beyond the unique film. Then, as soon as Warner Brothers announced that slate, we really got intensive about it.”
It’s still a little hard to believe that Man of Steel was always supposed to launch a world full of characters like Batman, Wonder Woman and the Flash, but the Zack Snyder-helmed release still set the stage for what was to come – for better or worse.
Asked to comment on how these movies are going to stand apart from each other while also tying together as part of a larger universe, Roven was quick to point out that each of their upcoming releases will be very much filmmaker-driven.
“But the thing is, each unique film in the DC pantheon is going to be unique because the directors are different except for Zack directing Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the two Justice League movies. Each one of those directors, whether it be David Ayer or Patty Jenkins or James Wan, they are bringing their sensibilities and a different production designer and different costume designer, et cetera. That world building will still be of the same DC Justice League universe, but have its own unique point of view.”
Man of Steel set the DC Extended Universe on the dark path which seemingly backfired on Warner Bros. last year, and with the early world on Wonder Woman and Justice League seemingly quite mixed at the moment, just how long it’s going to take the studio to recover isn’t clear as of right now. We’ll hold out hope though that both those aforementioned projects can get things back on track when they land later this year.
