New Delhi
DC Films is going ambitious with its post-corona release list. The superhero Universe is planning to build a larger world similar to its counterpart Marvel.
The company's president, Walter Hamada, told The New York Times that the Warner Bros. division plans to release "up to four" superhero titles per year in theaters starting in 2022, and another two feature films annually for the HBO Max streaming service.
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By noting that "the most expensive" movies will be released in theaters and the less costly titles will go to HBO Max, the announcement suggests the company is backing away from its recently announced controversial 2021 strategy of releasing movies in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time. Last week, 'Wonder Woman 1984' became the first major title to get the hybrid treatment when it debuted on the service on Christmas Day. Numbers are not available as to how the sequel performed on the service, but the film has grossed $85 million at the box office, largely overseas.
HBO Max will still be a major consideration moving forward. Hamada further said, "With every movie that we're looking at now, we are thinking, 'What's the potential Max spin-off?'" TV spin-offs based on the upcoming films The Batman (2022) and The Suicide Squad (2021) are already in the works.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the plan also put in perhaps the clearest terms yet the company's intention to employ a storytelling multiverse in order to generate a higher volume of diverse content. The multiverse strategy is considered a somewhat precarious move, as it risks turning DC Films' increasingly disparate storylines into a universe that's even more confusing and chaotic.
The multiverse premise will be introduced on the big screen in the upcoming The Flash (2022), starring Ezra Miller (who also made an appearance in the CW's recent superhero crossover event). The storytelling loophole serves as a way to permit different actors to play the same character in various franchises at the same time without violating canon (such as Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton both reprising the role of Batman in different upcoming films).
The CW network has dabbled in the multiverse with its league of shows, 'The Flash', 'Arrow', 'Supergirl' and more, and while it has resulted in many fun moments, it also got pretty messy â even with dozens of hours per season and five shows to sort it all out.
DC will be double downing on taking independent creative approaches to its material, even as Marvel's careful planning has helped grow the MCU into a massively successful empire, and its organized effort has proven to be a winning formula. However, DC, known for its complex and dark storytelling could alienate the genre's most devout fans who like a sense of cohesion to their superhero storytelling, and it could leave its films feeling less consequential.
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Marvel is already dabbling into the multiverse starting with 'WandaVision' on the streaming platform, and Spider-Man 3 and Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness. To the fans of both the Universes', it's going to be a multidimensional ride into different Earths and realities, come January.