How Warner Bros Can Fix The DC Extended Universe
5. Stop Announcing Release Dates So Early...
In October 2014, DC Entertainment officially announced a slate of ten movies, starting with BvS in 2016 and concluding with Green Lantern in 2020.
The first four of these have been released, but looking at the rest of them, it's abundantly clear that these movies were announced before the studio had any real confidence that they'd actually be made.
2018 was supposed to bring us a Flash standalone movie, 2019 a sequel to Justice League, and 2020 Cyborg and Green Lantern spinoffs - none of which will happen.
It's not a bad thing to announce dates ahead of time - the blockbuster scene is very competitive, and staking out a piece of land for your movie is essential - but it becomes bad when these dates are only announced to please shareholders, and the actual movies quickly fade into development hell.
The Flash has been in development for so long (and its director has changed so often) that it's hard to get excited for it anymore, while the apparent cancellation of Justice League 2 and the inevitable lack of a Cyborg movie only shows that Warner Bros has as little confidence in the DCEU as moviegoers do. Green Lantern may still make its date, but even that's a long shot.
It's just embarrassing, and makes Warner Bros and the DCEU look amateurish. The studio needs to start locking in dates either when they've made sufficient behind-the-scenes progress on a project (e.g. hiring a director and having a script) or when they have a surefire, stick-to-your-guns plan for their next phase of movies.
And they should never, never announce release dates six years in advance. Too much can go wrong in that time.
Fortunately, Hamada has already started being more careful with release date announcements, and this needs to continue. Don't promise something there's a chance you might not deliver.