10 Ways The DC Extended Universe Could End

It was Steven Spielberg who predicted that the superhero movie will one day go the way of the Western in Hollywood, and he obviously knows what's he's talking about when it comes to the film industry.

If this ends up happening and cinemagoers fall out of love with comic book adaptations, there's a chance DC and Warner Bros won't get to end the DC Extended Universe on their own terms.

Between DC's cinematic universe, its Marvel rival and Fox's X-Men franchise, five-to-seven superhero movies are being churned out each year, and when the Western became that prolific during its heyday, over-saturation set in.

So what are the chances of this happening with comic book adaptations? Well, there are reasons to believe it's far from inevitable. For one, superhero adaptations are far more flexible than Westerns, in the sense that they can span multiple genres.

Green Lantern Corps is expected to be a space opera, while Shazam will branch the DCEU out into comedy. Over in the Marvel camp, they have explored everything from spy-thrillers to rock operas.

A more immediate concern for DC and Warner is the possibility of shared universe fatigue. There are already signs that cinemagoers are questioning why everything has to exist in a cinematic universe, and this trend could one day see the DCEU go the way of Dark Universe, or at least have to reinvent itself.