10 Ways Warner Bros. Should've Made The DCEU

5. Get The Casting Right For Villains

Suicide Squad Joker
Warner Bros.

A comic book film can only be as good as its villains, so it's no surprise that the DCEU has fallen at that hurdle on the two occasions where it mattered the most.

Jesse Eisenberg was an unconventional casting pick for Lex right off the bat, and audiences were largely rewarded for their scepticism come BVS's release, with the actor spouting some variation of "God, man, night, day, Bat, God, power, man" sequentially right on through to the film's final act. It was dead embarrassing, to be frank, and while other comic book capers have succeeded in spite of a weak villain on plenty of occasions, DC are letting themselves down in this department.

The publisher have some of the finest villains in the medium, and yet they're repeatedly failed by their on-screen counterparts. Jared Leto's Joker was genuinely appalling (that 'Damaged' tattoo says hi), but even he looks to be staying on in the role with a planned Joker/Harley rom-com spin-off. Yuck.

Shifting from the likes of Aaron Eckhart, Liam Neeson and Heath Ledger to... whatever this has been, speaks more to a lack of direction than anything else. DC have Marvel well and truly beat when it comes to their villains, and seeing as how it is - theoretically - the easiest punch to land, it's pretty dire to see the universe falter.

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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.