10 Reasons Why DC Should Give Up On Its Cinematic Universe

3. A Matter Of Reputation

Batman V Superman Batman Gun
Warner Bros.

The DCEU's reputation precedes it, and that in itself is a major wrong the company must right. The fact that before a trailer has even been uploaded - before a press release has been posted - fans already have their own preconceptions regarding the universe's quality, surely speaks more to the fact that the franchise is untenable than anything else.

The fact of the matter is that both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman weren't great; the latter in particular was fairly atrocious, and that's before we've even gotten to the absolute mess that was Suicide Squad, which somehow managed to outdo BVS in terms of awfulness in the very same year. That's a glaring issue no matter how you look it, and, ignoring the redemptive aspects of Wonder Woman for a moment, that film entered the final phase of production with a great deal of pessimism surrounding it. Though Jenkins' film did, thankfully, turn out to be a great success, many folks had already made their minds up months before it was even due to release.

Hitting reset on the whole thing (sans Diana and co.) would allow DC to evade the Marvel comparisons and return their cinematic efforts to a state of synonymy with real quality and top Hollywood talent. It's not a universal fix - of course not - but the DCEU is so far gone already that surely it would be better to start over again.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.