With a flood of superhero movies in theaters over the past decade, there is a fight between Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe.
And Disney has been consistently winning in terms of quality.
The first issue is that the DC Extended Universe essentially tried to follow the MCU’s model when creating the brand. MCU began by establishing their cornerstone hero in 2008’s Iron Man and from there built a network of individual film series that all connect with each other, but still manage to stand on their own. DC’s first mistake in this process may have not been their own fault as they lack any Batman film that can live up to The Dark Knight series. The Dark Knight movies were so good that the bar was set high enough that nothing DC films did could compare, and their attempt to create a cinematic universe was poor at best.
Another struggle the DC films face is that DC Comics are considered darker and edgier, giving them a grittiness that sets them apart from much of Marvel’s lighter, more family-friendly heroes. While the details are tricky, there is a whole other branch of Marvel films owned by a separate company from the one that owns the MCU. Out of this came Deadpool and Logan; two edgy R-Rated anti-hero films that were mega hits with adult moviegoers. DC missed a huge opportunity to target this market with 2016’s Suicide Squad. Instead of going with an R-Rated film targeted at adults the end result was a film with a PG-13 rating that was open to a wider audience. While Suicide Squad ultimately enjoyed some commercial success, it was easily forgettable and disappointing.
Perhaps the largest issue of all has been the overall quality of the films Warner Bros. has released as part of the DC Extended Universe. A quick review of the DC Films Rotten tomatoes page shows the distain critics have had for the films. The scores are mainly in 20-30 percent range with only one single film breaking the over 60 percent threshold. Compared to MCU scores, which bottom out at 66 percent, this means Marvel’s worst film is better than all DC films but one.
Unfortunately, the future does not look any brighter for DC. Just last week Henry Cavill announced he would not be returning as Superman in any of the upcoming DC projects. This is a massive blow as Cavill has essentially been the face of DC and is arguably one of their most respected names.This leaves a handful of future films, including the sequel to 2017’s disappointing Justice League, lacking their lead man. Alongside this DC released a photo of how the cast of the upcoming Teen Titans film will look on screen and it was met with negative reception. Many even compared the look to the heroes in the superhero parody film Kick Ass.
All things considered, Warner Bros. should pull the plug on this operation. It's not only embarrassing for the company, but its adding pointless films to an already over-saturated genre. Since it's likely Warner Bros. will keep this disastrous collection of films on life support as long as they can, at least we’ll have a Wonder Woman sequel to look forward to.
Noah Wright is an undecided sophomore studying at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Noah? Tweet him @NoahCampaign.
