The View Asknewniverse is a cinematic universe, but you don’t have to watch Mallrats to understand Chasing Amy. Quentin Tarantino’s films exist in a cinematic universe, but it’s not essential to know that Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs is the brother of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. The MCU isn’t the only way to do a cinematic universe.
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Mix of stand-a-lones and/or connected tie-ins. Cool 
As for the main DCEU :
- Reboot/Soft-Reboot
- Make the JSA the main hero team for the future meanwhile JL members do individual films with some crossover with each other like Flash until contracts run out then Reboot or something. Just seems like a mess trying to even keep half of the JL actors at this point.
Side-Note: JLA could be a fresh start for a DC team hero movie with no strings attached and maybe less divisive on character by character basis 
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True, but I feel that the difference in genre greatly affects why those universes can work like that. Those universes center around average people (for the most part, obviously the Tarantino universe has crazy characters, but the actual world they live in is identical to our own). Those films don’t need to have as wide of an impact on the other films because the characters and stories they center around wouldn’t realistically have as large of an impact.
Superheroes are larger than life characters living in a heightened world with major conflicts that have major consequences. Now, do I want every movie to end in a climactic monster, light show finale. No. I loathe them. If you have smaller villains or personal villains, they don’t need to impact the rest of the universe. For example, Thor: The Dark World centers almost entirely around Asgard, and thus doesn’t impact much of the MCU (although I’m not going to pretend I want anymore movies like Thor: The Dark World… one was too much as it is lol).
What I’m getting at is that I’m fine with smaller villains and more personal plots that don’t impact the rest of the universe. Shazam! as pointed out by @Izzy11 is a great example of this. But that is not the case for most of these films in the DCEU thus far (nor does it seem to be the plan based on what we’ve seen so far). So, if you’re going to have your characters deal with huge problems in a heightened connected world, they should impact one another since that’s how it would work.
Hope that clarifies my position and also shows how the comparison to stuff like the View Asknewniverse or Tarantino verse don’t quite work for this genre.
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Except for the vampires in Mexico. 
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Alright you got me there. I’m emailing Jim Lee now to put you in charge haha. 
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Yeah, like I said, I’m totally down for a DC reboot at this point just because trying to cobble together this universe is difficult. That said, I think @mccaggers91 has a point that it wouldn’t be satisfying to the fans of this universe. I don’t want to just move on from this universe because there are lots of people who love it. Like I said in the beginning, the DC fanbase is fractured and a bit indecisive as a whole towards what we want. So, what’s the best plan of action to make sure everyone gets a little bit of what they want. Obviously, there have to be compromises, but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore half the fandom so we can please the other half.
I really feel like it’s a herculean or impossible task to satisfy both sides. Seeing it already with ‘The Suicide Squad’ and peoples attachment to the pervious iteration.
Maybe the only fix is having HBO do Snyder’s JL2 and 3 ASAP then reboot ASAP? As it seems Warner wasn’t ever planning on doing a continuation of ZSJL so don’t think there’s any alternative to satisfy people wanting a continuation of that past even in a soft-reboot sense like SS might.
This is why I’d like the JLA to be the face of DC’s Hero Team because of how completely detached it would be and possibly bring both sides of fans together.
** head scratches ** but then people would be mad we’re getting JLA team movies instead of another JL team movie. 
very difficult
I kind of touched it on my follow up post, but I think the multiverse is going to be the key to satisfying everyone since it’ll allow for a bunch of different takes on the same character at the same time.
But, you’re right, it almost impossible to satisfy everyone. I guess the main question then would be, which side do you choose and why?
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Just moving on from the past in any way. Besides some clips, I’ve never actually watched Justice League theatrical or ZSJL lol. The Universe early on + future plans killed my interest in Justice League or a Universe BUT i’m open to any type of new plan, new direction. Hopefully The Flash is the beginning of this rejuvenation process with the multiverse in whatever way it may hold.
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“Some men just want to see the world burn”
I had hope for the DCEU even knowing that it would most likely end all hope of me seeing a movie I was crazy interested in.
We all have our opinion on what has come. Expectations have not been met. Aquaman has small problems going forward, Wonder Woman has to improve off a bad movie and no decent bad guy to use, Shazam has a bright future, but isn’t really connected to the bigger universe.
There are plenty of hack creatives out there you can get to work on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others, let them. If you keep them small enough, they’ll make money.
Let the people who have a great vision and know how to execute it do what they want. Hopefully, I can see a The Authority series or movie. Taika Waititi on Metal Men or Jordan Peele making a Creeper property.
Every Superman or Batman movie hasn’t changed much since 1977 and to be honest I think I’m done with them. I might support Calvin Ellis Superman, I don’t know, but as far as the DCEU as a whole, I’ll wait until they’re on HBO Max.
If the powers that be decide to start over and go in a completely different direction, I would welcome it.
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I don’t have much to add other than you eloquently and beautifully articulated my feelings more than I can. Great stuff. I appreciate the addition.
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Another thing I’ve been thinking about recently is that the DC Animated Universe could be an interesting formula to follow as well. They did a pretty great job at setting up a connected universe with reasonable stakes in each with that didn’t force their stories to bend around what happened in the others. The one thing that I would want the live action films to do differently is have each film be a bit more stylized and unique. The style and tone of all the DC animated films felt pretty much identical to one another which I’d want to see changed if the formula were copied for the live action DCEU in the future.
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First step is to change the terrible term “DCEU.” Reminds me of DC ew. “Extended universe”? What are these, novels or blockbuster movies?
I don’t envy the people at the top who have to come up with a solution, because no matter what they do, they’ll lose. If they restore the Snyderverse, they lose all the people who hate Snyder’s style. If they reboot (and I mean fully reboot, new actors and everything), they lose all the Snyderverse loyalists. If they do nothing and keep things as is, they’ll continue losing. But maybe that’s what it takes, though: a bold, steadfast decision made ASAP, like ripping off a band aid. The worst thing is to just let the uncertainty stay up in the air and to remain wishy-washy with only SOME of the Snyderverse actors in their current movies, because the longer it remains up in the air and uncertain, the more people have time to build their imaginary ideal versions in their heads, rather than just dealing with the reality that is.
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Not if they cater to those people with some of the other films. As it currently stands, we have two branches: the Snyder films (MoS-BvS-JL, along with the films he produced: WW, WW84, and Aquaman) and the Harley Quinn films (SS, BoP, and TSS). Then we have one outlier: Shazam. Perhaps they need to focus on expanding the Shazam branch with other family-geared films while retaining the other two branches. Each branch exists in the same fictional world, but they only make light references to each other.
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I’m worried about how bad JJ Abrams is going to mess things up.
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This is a simple approach that makes quite a bit of sense. Wonder which branch The Batman and the in development Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Superman would fall under? Then you have this Flash movie that looks to be mixing things up.
Whatever the approach is, I would like to see the Snyder story seen through in some fashion. Don’t leave us with “Ready the armada” and just stop there… c’mon!
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I agree with you that expanding tone and style of the various solo films should (and probably will) be a key element when moving the DCEU forward. However, I don’t believe tone was the thing holding Snyder back. At least, it wasn’t for me.
When it comes to Snyder’s films, I think they are visually stunning. He is a visionary who comes up gorgeous shots and visuals, but the actual story he was telling felt shallow and half baked. That said, I’m not here to argue over whether Snyder’s films are good or not since that can be very subjective and I’m just some dork on a forum so who am I really to lead that discussion (and it’s also worth noting that these issues are not only seen within DCEU films helmed by Snyder). What I’m getting at is that, at least for me, the reason I’m not interested in Snyder’s vision has nothing to do with its dark and grim tone. I’m down for far more serious films dealing with heavier issues within the genre and with the characters. I just don’t think that simply changing up tones and going for a more family-oriented option with some films is the solution to the wider problem.
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It doesn’t look like J.J. Abrams is actually leading the creative side of things. Him and his studio are simply the producers of the film. So far, the only person we know to have creative input is Ta-Nehisi Coates. Maybe that doesn’t change your mind, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
I don’t see it as a matter of tone so much as a matter of genre. The “Snyderverse” is focused on mythology, both its deconstruction and reconstruction. The Harley Quinn films are violent action comedies. Shazam is YA material, and I suspect that a Flash movie with Ezra Miller could fall into the same branch if they so chose.
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Gotcha. I agree in ensuring there is diverse selection of genre in the future will be important and does mostly fit in line with my push to using the multiverse cover lots of tastes. I guess my response was mostly based in my personal distaste for the DCEU thus far and not as objective as it could be. Fair points. Thanks for pointing it out.
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