Warner Bros are so pleased with Man Of Steel's $113 million opening weekend (almost $200 million worldwide) that they may fast track the sequel to be released as early as next year. Not only that but the planned Justice League ensemble film could come out "as soon as 2015", according to reports at
The Wall Street Journal. WB's President of Domestic Distribution Dan Fellman said to the paper, regarding Man Of Steel;
"It's more than just a franchise for us, it really opens up the door to do combinations of the DC Comics characters. We can build them up like Marvel did and benefit from the history of DC."
Although there's nothing official from Warner Bros just yet, it is clear that in the past few weeks there's been a significant shift of optimism at the studio about the future of their comic book movies. Man Of Steel's massive opening is giving WB a huge amount of confidence in their superhero product that hasn't really existed outside of the Batman film franchise for years. Whether that confidence means a Man Of Steel sequel could possibly even come out next year (and if it did it would need to film in the next few months, for a release Christmas 2014... but given how much time was taken with Man Of Steel, seems completely unlikely) and a JLA movie a year after, I'm not sure director Zack Snyder could deliver it on time if he started working on it tomorrow. Man Of Steel screenwriter David Goyer, who is also contracted to write the Justice League movie,
has been talking up the future of the DC Universe on film this past week and it's obvious it is going to happen. But could it possibly be this soon?