The DC Extended Universe or DCEU is about to reach its twilight with the upcoming premiere of ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’, which will end the said superhero film universe to make way for the new DCU by James Gunn and Peter Safran starting from 2025 with the premiere of ‘Superman Legacy’. However. What has caused the DCEU to fail so badly all these years? Why does the general public seem to turn their backs on Superman, Batman and company movies as part of a shared universe? David S. Goyer, screenwriter of ‘Man of Steel’ believes he has the answer.
The screenwriter of ‘Man of Steel’ has an answer
David S. Goyer, screenwriter of ‘Man of Steel’ (2013), the first DCEU film directed by Zack Snyder with Henry Cavill making his debut as Superman, believes that the failure of that universe comes from bad decision of Warner Bros. trying to build a Marvel-style shared universe instead of betting on a direct sequel to ‘Man of Steel’. This was stated in the latest episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, a program where he also revealed that he is writing a Star Wars movie for Guillermo del Toro.
“I know the pressure we’re getting from Warner Bros., which is: ‘We need our Marvel Cinematic Universe!’ We need our Marvel Cinematic Universe!’ And I said: ‘Let’s not run before we walk.’ Another thing that was difficult at the time was that there was a revolving door of executives at Warner Bros. and DC. Every 18 months someone new came in. We were dizzy. Every new person said: ‘Let’s go for one something bigger!’” said the screenwriter.
So much so, that Goyer believes that Warner Bros. there is not enough infrastructure to build such a complex universe, to the point that a plan is presented in 20 films for the next 10 years that have not even been written. the rise of improvisation: “I remember that the man who ran Warner Bros. at the time had a plan that presented the next 20 films in the next 10 years. But not one of them has been written yet! It was incredible how much architecture was being built in the air… That’s not how you build a house,” concluded the writer.
