15 Fixes To Save The DC Extended Universe

After Batman v Superman landed with critical indifference and fan outrage earlier this year, fans assured themselves it was simply a bump in the road and Suicide Squad would right all wrongs.

Then Suicide Squad came out and earned marginally worse reviews than BvS, causing many fans to consider that there just might be some troubling systemic issues in Warner Bros' DC Extended Universe.

It's safe to say that critical reception does affect box office on movies like this (it may have no bearing on, say, Transformers), and if Warner want to reach that coveted billion-dollar movie anytime soon, they're going to need to fix the myriad issues holding them back from even solid reviews.

Though there are some encouraging signs ahead, and the DCEU's next two projects in particular are extraordinarily promising, remember that we all said that about their two most recent ones as well. It really could go either way, so it's probably best to keep your expectations hovering in the middle from this point on.

Here are 15 fixes to save the DC Extended Universe...

The DCEU to date has had something of a marketing problem for its movies. While Man of Steel's advertising push largely went ahead without too many problems, Batman v Superman struggled to strike a consistent tone, and as a result a nervous Warner Bros. released different trailers playing up both the "dark" and "fun" elements of the movie. The marketing was also widely derided for largely spoiling the movie's third-act arrivals of Wonder Woman and Doomsday.

Then there's Suicide Squad, which rather cynically leaned on popular music to try and paint itself as more fun in response to BvS' criticisms, even as previous trailers retained a darker, more serious style. Also, many expressed surprise at how little Jared Leto's Joker was in the final movie given his presence in trailers.

The problem with trying to make promotional materials targeted at different subsets of the audience is that it suggests to the viewer that the movie doesn't have a distinct tone: is it grimdark or is it fluffy fun? If Warner instead made more cohesive trailers that at-once demonstrated the combination of light and dark, then viewers might have a better idea of exactly what sort of film they're potentially paying money for.