9. Duelling Screenplays For DC Movies
Whereas Marvel Studios have used the solo movies to build up to Earth's Mightiest Heroes uniting as The Avengers, the DC Extended Universe will introduce the majority of the heroes with brief cameos in Batman V Superman before throwing them into the Justice League. While there's nothing to say this approach can't and won't work, it's a risky move, especially as a big part of why The Avengers was such a runaway success came down to the excitement of seeing all those heroes we'd grown to know over a number of years being united for the first time. It gets weirder though. Warner Bros. have actually been getting screenwriters to pen duelling scripts for some of these movies (Aquaman is one of them), and will then decide whether they want to use one, or a combination of both! Insiders at the time described this process as throwing sh*t against the wall and seeing what sticks, and that's an assessment which seems to fit. If it works though? Well, the studio will have shown that it's not just Marvel who knows how to successfully develop superhero properties! Unfortunately, this approach does seem to point to the studio not being sure what the best direction is to take these characters in. It's not unheard of though, so you have to believe that they're at least somewhat confident that this is a method which is going to work. The main reason for developing a movie on a dual track is to allow for release dates to be set while the project is still in early development, and at least Warner Bros. are hedging their bets rather than relying on one writer, fast tracking the movie, and just forging ahead with whatever they deliver (good or bad).