10 Radical Ideas To Save The DC Extended Universe
4. Lean Into It
Okay, so Warner have committed to this bleak, barren wasteland of a DCEU: a land where a sudden break in the clouds in the form of a couple of half-decent gags in a Justice League trailer feels like a fortnight in Hawaii.
Fine. If that’s the case, let’s lean into it. Let Snyder indulge his grim, nineties-style brooding anti-hero fetish. If this is the approach they’re going for, let them go nuts.
But rather than take a primary coloured symbol of hope and optimism like Clark Kent and turning him into a brooding, angst-ridden Catholic Messiah figure - rather than have Snyder re-enact The Passion Of The Christ with the Man Of Tomorrow - let’s find the actual brooding, angst-ridden anti-heroes in the DCEU and make movies out of their lives.
Being a Gail Simone fanboy, I’d suggest the Secret Six… except they’ve already pretty much made a Secret Six movie with this abortion of a Suicide Squad flick, so that’s off the table.
Doug Liman's literally just been announced as the director for Dark Universe, an adaptation of DC's murky supernatural book Justice League Dark. That's likely to feature series regulars John Constantine, Zatanna, Etrigan The Demon, Deadman, Madame Zanadu and Shade The Changing Man, all of whom are weird and wonderful oddballs and freaks. And 'dark' doesn't begin to cover it.
Then there’s Lobo, the intergalactic DC equivalent of Deadpool - kind of like a scary space biker who tears people’s arms off. In the language of his people, his name means “one who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it”, and the reason he’s the last of his kind is because he killed all of the others.
How about Catwoman? She’s a burglar who neatly straddles the DC underworld, the rogues galleries of half a dozen heroes and the superhero community, having plenty of friends and enemies in all three. We could do with erasing all memory of Halle Berry with cat ears, and realised properly, the character is a star-making turn for the right actress.
Huntress is the Batgirl who kills criminals. Green Arrow often gets his hands dirty. And what about Garth Ennis’ Hitman, the telepathic assassin with x-ray eyes who kills metahumans? Cast the right Tommy Monaghan, keep the budget the low side of sixty million, advertise it as being from the twisted brain behind Preacher, and you could easily have a Deadpool style hit on your hands.