8 Critical Mistakes The DC Film Universe Has Made

Ever since Marvel launched Iron Man in 2008, movie studios across the globe have attempted to learn from the success of the biggest cinematic universe in the world, and apply a similar model to their own properties.

We've got Universal trying to create a monster movie universe, which kicks off with The Mummy (and initially failed with Dracula Untold), there are some very loud rumblings of a Jump Street/Men In Black crossover, and LEGO began its interconnected movie journey with 2014's The LEGO Movie, to be followed by The LEGO Batman Movie in February.

But, as Dracula Untold will attest, it's not as easy as Marvel make it look, and Warner Bros. would almost certainly back the two-fanged monster up. Their own DC Extended Universe, created in 2013, hasn't enjoyed the success that its comic-book competition has, and there are numerous reasons for it.

Everybody wants the studio to knock it out of the park and deliver strong superhero movie after strong superhero movie, but that hasn't been the case just yet. Still, it's early days, and if the DCEU is to one day flourish, it has to face some harsh truths about the way it's conducted itself up to this point.

Here are eight critical mistakes the DC film universe has made so far...

Suicide Squad seemed out of place ever since it was first announced, sandwiched between the likes of Wonder Woman and Batman v Superman. A group of largely unknown 'bad guy' characters teaming up and heading off on a top-secret mission? How will that be received, when the DCEU is still in its infancy?

Sadly, as it turns out, rather poorly. But had Suicide Squad come in a few years, after Warner Bros. has drip-fed audiences standalone films based around some of their more popular characters - Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash - a movie about a rag-tag group of anti-heroes, largely disconnected from the main arc of the cinematic universe, would have fared much better. Just ask Guardians Of The Galaxy.

For starters, Warner Bros. would have had more than two movies to hook us in with familiar characters and fully establish the DCEU's tone, before hitting us with the crazy and the irreverent. Man Of Steel was dark and grim and Batman v Superman followed suit, but Suicide Squad, at times... felt like a music video?

Tonally, it was out of place, and story-wise - at least in terms of laying the DCEU's groundwork when it came to Darkseid and the Mother Boxes - it was out of place, but the actual film isn't fully to blame; part of the responsibility lies with how early Warner Bros. placed it in their slate.