The DCU is gearing up under the creative control of James Gunn and Peter Safran, of which the former has cleared up how the DC Elseworlds stories will fit in, but has stipulated that movies like The Batman and Joker will have to do better than DCU films in order to justify being made.
In an interview with Gizmodo, the pair outlined their plans and cleared up any questions fans had regarding the studio’s future. Gunn confirmed that the studio will be making Elseworlds movies outside of the main universe, but stated that the bar would be higher for all of them in comparison to the main DCU films.
The bar for an Elseworlds tale is going to be higher than the bar for something in the DCU. Not that we’re not always going to have a higher bar, but it’s got to be something really special for us to tell that story outside of our regular continuity and to spend the money on it to make it.
Gunn is meticulously planning out the future of the DCU so he’s had to make some brutal decisions, and the Elseworlds movies will be no different. This could mean that some films that fans would love to see won’t be getting made. Fans have had their say on Gunn’s latest statement, and many agree.
Gunn and Safran also somewhat cleared up the plan for a multiverse and what that could mean for the SnyderVerse, which some fans are still clinging on to. Whilst Gunn didn’t give too much away, he confirmed that a multiverse story is in the works and that there could be the possibility of some old faces making cameos but it’s unlikely they’ll be prominently featured in the new DCU.
The main challenge to the new creative heads at DC Studios is to avoid confusing fans as there are so many different versions of the same heroes across the huge selection of DC films and TV series and they all exist at the same time. The Elseworlds movies show that they are still planning to produce standalone films without making them confusing for the audience.
