10 Things The DCEU Wishes It Could've Done Differently
6. Not Filmed Justice League Immediately After Batman V Superman's Release
The problem with assuming that your movie will be successful is that it might not be successful, something that Warner Bros. discovered in 2016.
When the studio set Justice League to go before cameras literally two weeks after Batman V Superman's release, they were assuming that the latter film would land with a positive splash, both financially and critically, and with the fans. But it didn't.
That might have been fine if they had plenty of time afterwards to assess the situation and understand what went wrong, but with Justice League about to start shooting in literally a fortnight's time, the whole thing turned into a mad scramble to save it from the same fate BvS just suffered, by altering it while the wheels were already turning.
And in the patchwork finished product, you can almost see this mad scramble popping through onto the screen. The movie had clearly been significantly reshot, tons of footage from the trailers had been axed, and it had flashes of a darker film that just wasn't there.
Imagine how different things could have been if Warner Bros. had waited to see the reaction to BvS before barrelling full-steam ahead with its sequel, without any clue as to what audiences may or may not like, and what may or may not work. Justice League might have been a more coherent movie overall, rather than the reactionary and slapdash product it ended up being.