How Warner Bros Can Fix The DC Extended Universe

6. Allow Filmmakers Creative Freedom (But Don't Forget To Guide Them)

Josh Trank Fantastic Four
Warner Bros.

With most DCEU movies, Warner Bros has failed to strike the perfect balance between studio interference and a director's vision, consistently leaning too heavily in one direction or the other.

Emboldened by the success of Christoper Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (but weirdly, not phased by the failure of Green Lantern), the studio just let Zack Snyder and his writers do whatever the hell they wanted with Man Of Steel and BvS, and while the former movie worked out well enough, the latter was a colossal disaster that was poorly received by critics and most fans, as well as disappointing at the box-office.

Batman V Superman Rotten Tomatoes
RottenTomatoes

This stumble scared the studio - and rightly so - but rather than keeping their heads and being a bit more careful with their upcoming projects, they lost the plot, editing Suicide Squad into an unrecognisable mess and absolutely butchering Justice League (Warner Bros CEO Kevin Tsujihara famously demanded the film be under two hours, when the full, scripted story was almost certainly much longer than that).

Only Wonder Woman seems to have found the perfect recipe for Warner Bros, and with as bad as their track record is, they need to switch things up.

What they should be doing is allowing Hamada to map out his slate and develop an over-arching plan that links each movie together, in a big way or a small way. With this framework in place, he can bring in exciting filmmakers and allow them to make the movies they want to make, guiding them in the right direction but ultimately leaving them to their own devices.

Get ready for another Marvel comparison, but this is exactly how the MCU does it. Feige knows where he wants to be in a few years time, and as long as his filmmakers steer towards that goal, they can do as they please. This has brought us gems like Black Panther and Guardians Of The Galaxy, movies that are very clearly products of smart directors who had the freedom to express themselves.

When it all comes down to it, the DCEU just needs great movies, and this model has proven to be an effective one for tentpole filmmaking.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.