Earlier this week, Warner Brothers made our geeky wishes come true as the studio finally announced release dates for its burgeoning DC Cinematic Universe. Not only did it move Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice away from Captain America 3 by shifting the film to March 25th, 2016, but the studio revealed the release dates for nine “Untitled DC films” that stretch from 2016 to 2020, giving us two DC Comics adaptations a year.
As a lifelong DC fan, I couldn’t be happier about this news. Warner Brothers has been sitting on these properties for decades, hesitant to give anyone but Batman and Superman a chance at the big screen. The studio took a gamble with Green Lantern (which flopped miserably) and was forced to backtrack a bit and rethink its long-term strategy. Luckily for us, the studio seems to have more confidence now, and are moving full steam ahead.
Exactly when we could expect to hear the names of those “unannounced” films was initially unclear, but if Warner Bros.’ president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman is to be believed, “some” of them could be announced later this month. He also teased the possibility of Justice League arriving hot on the heels of Batman V Superman. WB has a DC film slated for August 5th, 2016, which we initially speculated would be Shazam. Could WB capitalize on the momentum of Batman V Superman and bring the super friends together for their big team-up film a mere four and a half months later? In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Fellman hinted at the idea by saying:
“While it hasn’t been officially announced, I think it’s a pretty good bet.”
That’s far from an official confirmation, so we’ll take a big grain of salt with that comment. Additionally, Fellman weighed in on the studio’s decision to move Batman V Superman away from Captain America 3. Both films shared the same release date for a few months, though we never truly expected them to go head-to-head. According to Fellman, the move from May to March wasn’t the studio “backing down” from Marvel or “blinking first.” It was just good business sense:
“The reality now is there really isn’t a bad week to open a movie. If you look at the summer box office this year, you can see that there were so many movies, one after the other. You can start with Spider-Man, two weeks later Godzilla, and then Maleficent, and then Edge of Tomorrow, and then Jump Street and Transformers. And the one thing they all had in common, not one of them did over $250 million. We’ll be the first one up [in 2016], which is very important, and we’ll have six weeks before Captain America comes in.”
What do you think of Fellman’s comments? Do you think Justice League could arrive in 2016, right after Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice? And which DC films would you like to see announced later this month? Sound off in the comments below!
