Are We Looking At An Upcoming Original Content Shortage?

General Discussion
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As I look at the planned schedule for DCU’s Original Programming in 2019, I’ve realized there may be an impending gap in our weekly fix of story-telling goodness.

When DCU started out, it was indicated (but admittedly never ‘promised’) that they wanted to give us new, original content every Friday. For the most part, they’ve kept to that, giving us Titans followed by Young Justice, followed by Doom Patrol. And Swamp Thing will begin just as soon as Doom Patrol ends.

But it has been widely reported that Swamp Thing’s first season has been shortened to ten episodes, and the show that was originally supposed to pick up immediately after it - Stargirl - has been pushed back to 2020. The second season of Titans has been announced for ‘Fall’ and the animated Harley Quinn for ‘Late Fall’.

Which leaves us with a pretty big gap to fill.

Of course, there’s still the second half of Young Justice’s third season which is currently announced to begin on July 2nd. Instead of giving us 3 - 4 episodes a week, the powers-that-be could stretch it out to one per week, giving us a 13-week run, taking us to the end of September. And if they changed to launch date to later - after Swamp Thing ends - it could make it to October or even November if they wanted.

But if we follow the same pattern as the past eight months, the tenth episode of Swamp Thing should premiere on August 2nd and the last four episodes of Young Justice would appear on July 23rd. That would leave us without new original content (except perhaps for DC Daily) for all of August and into the fall, whenever Titans S2 is scheduled.

Not trying to be alarmist. I love this service, and if there must be a gap to maintain quality, I’m all for it. But if DCU doesn’t announce some changes, I think we all may need to prepare ourselves for a month- or two-long drought in programming, though I certainly hope I’m wrong.

I can already feel the withdrawal kicking in… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Then kick the withdrawal out. Tell it “Freeloaders need not apply.” :slight_smile:

You raise a good point. I imagine this issue has been addressed in the DCU War Room. As you said, the simplest solution seems to be to draw out the rest of YJ S3.

If not that, then maybe a special presentation of some sort is being worked on to fill in the gaps?

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They have Batman Hush coming soon, but yes they need content.

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We’ve gotten spoiled with lackluster services like Hulu/Netflix which add movies and shows every so often.

We get to a point where quanity replaces quality and while optimism says “Why not both?” History only proves that it can only be one or the other.

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Maybe the off weeks could be used for DCU Fan Event get togethers?

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I agree with gibbyhurtz. If we have to take a gap in content it’s cool with me so long as the quality of the shows stays good. Titans and Doom patrol are among the best series that are out right now on any
platform IMO. Swamp thing, I am confident will be amazing. YJ is a quality show. This service is relatively new and from what I can tell fairly small in terms of subscribers. Which means we certainly have gotten spoiled with content this year. It would not be a problem for me if they slow down the rate of content as long as the quality remains good. After all that’s what the 20,000 comics are for. To entertain while we wait.

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If there is a bit of a content hiatus, that’s ok. We can binge Titans, DP, YJ3, ST. While we wait.

As long as they give us a start date, so we have things to look forward to, I’ll survive.

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During the gap between Titans and Doom Patrol, we got some more old series added to the service. I’m hoping they’ve got more lying in wait for us. (Ruby Spears Superman, anyone?)

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@DeSade I’m curious: is your Roy Scheider profile pic from The French Connection, The Seven-Ups or something else? It looks very familiar.

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@Vroom
It’s from “All That Jazz”
Which if you haven’t seen, you should. It’s freakin amazing. One of the top 3 films of all time, IMO.

Foxybrides gave me a bit of “fun agro” about not having a pic.
And what can you say about Joe Gideon, the best performance Roy ever did. He should have won the Oscar for it.

Right before the last number, Ben Vereen is describing him
“To this cat, the only reality is death, man”

Seriously, if you haven’t seen “All That Jazz”, ya should. Dark, funny, sarcastic, powerful, entertaining & the cinematography is beautiful & it is a great edited movie. Great script and extremely well directed by Bob Fosse. F-ing, bleeping amazing.

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Perhaps they plan on filling the gap with Arrowverse shows now that the Netflix deal has expired

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@BrightKnight Netflix doesn’t lose the shows it already has. It just stops getting new shows.

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You’d also think at some point USA Network Swamp Thing or Swamp Thing movie or Green Lantern movie would show up here, could always drop something like that during the gap. I’m cool with putting quality before an arbitrary schedule, but as a business model I would want something fresh every week.

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@msgtv I wouldn’t be surprised if they restored the Swamp Thing show or at least brought it to the service. I’m actually surprised that it’s not here yet. It feels like it would be the perfect way to build up hype for the original series.

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Yep, vaguely remember watching and thinking :thinking: it was good

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No existing Swamp Thing movie or TV content will show up here unless a licensing agreement is made between its current rightsholders and Warner Brothers as WB owns absolutely none of the Swamp Thing movies and pre-DCU TV shows he starred in.

I imagine WB would rather showcase Justice Leagues Action and Dark on here as they own that content. Plus, Mark Hamill voicing Swamp Thing on JLA was great.

I would LOVE for the Ruby Spears Superman TV series to come here. WB owns it and it’s an underrated jewel in the animated DC crown that deserves more spotlight thrust upon it.

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@Vroom Any idea who owns the rights to it?

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Another show that WB owns the rights to (unless NBC still has some) is Powerless. The last three episodes never aired in the USA, although they put the last one on YouTube briefly as a tribute to Adam West.

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@Awesome_Squid Here’s the skinny on Swamp Thing doodads:

-MGM owns Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing
-Lightyear Entertainment has The Return of Swamp Thing (released in May of 1989; thank goodness WB released Batman a month later)
-Universal Television (a division of Universal Pictures) owns the original live action Swamp Thing TV series
-DIC Enterprises owns the animated Swamp Thing TV series (which aired on Fox Kids; the home of Batman: The Animated Series)

There you have it :slight_smile:

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@Vroom Thanks. That is a mess. I guess my dreams of a complete library of Swamp Thing movies and TV shows on DC Universe isn’t happening…