Despite canceling the Batgirl movie and laying off a ton of HBO Max staff, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav claims that there is a 10-year plan in place for the DCEU. Presumably, this is so that the DC movies can properly compete with Disney’s Marvel films, though this is far from the first time we’ve seen a “plan” for the DCEU.
What’s the 10-year DCEU plan?
As part of the Warner Bros. Discovery Q2 2022 earnings call (via Reddit), David Zaslav claims that their 10-year plan for the DCEU is to basically release high-quality movies featuring DC characters like Batman. Black Adam and The Flash are still scheduled for release next year, both of which will likely define what the DCEU will be about, despite the latter starring controversial actor Ezra Miller.
"There will be a team with a 10-year plan focusing just on DC. It's very similar to the structure that Alan Horn and Bob Iger put together, very effectively, with Kevin Feige at Disney," said Zaslav. "We think that we could build a long-term much stronger, sustainable growth business out of DC. And as part of that, we're going to focus on quality. We're not going to release any film before it's ready. We're not going to release a film to make a quarter. We're not going to release a film unless the focus is going to be, 'How do we make each of these films in general as good as possible?' But DC is something that we think we could make better and we're focused on it now. We have some great DC films coming up — Black Adam, Shazam, and Flash – and we're working on all of those. We're very excited about them."
Zaslav mentioning Kevin Feige shows that they still want some of that MCU-style success. This is despite focusing on a cinematic universe has been done by DC before and it blew up in their faces. Many fans were actually praising the self-contained nature of movies like The Suicide Squad and Shazam so it will be interesting to see what the DCEU will be like from here on out.
Read More: SnyderVerse officially cancelled by DC at ComicCon panel
Why Batgirl didn’t get released
Naturally, some of these comments regarding a 10-year DCEU plan didn’t go well with DC fans who wanted to see what the Batgirl movie was going to be like. While Warner Bros. claims that they are grateful towards the staff and actors who took part in Batgirl, it seemingly didn’t gel with what they want from the DCEU. Changes being made to DC Universe and HBO Max were also blamed.
"The decision to not release Batgirl reflects our leadership's strategic shift as it relates to the DC universe and HBO Max," a Warner Bros. spokesperson said to ComicBook.com. "Leslie Grace is an incredibly talented actor and this decision is not a reflection of her performance. We are incredibly grateful to the filmmakers of Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt and their respective casts and we hope to collaborate with everyone again in the near future."
Until more content is released, fans are seemingly displeased with the decisions made by Warner Bros. Discovery and their new mission statement. It really is a shame that Batgirl was canned like this and we hope that the company working on quality DC movies is something they mean this time. Batman V Superman still haunts some of us to this day.
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