Forget ‘The House of the Dragon’, ‘The Rings of Power’ or the second season of ‘The White Lotus’; the most fascinating, convoluted and murky plot of the final stretch of 2022 it has not been seen on television, but in the offices of Warner Bros. Discovery and the new and renewed – and what remains – DC Studios.
Since the end of October, the film division of the Distinguished Competition has been running wild on the rails of a roller coaster in which each blind spot before a descent could hide a cancellation, an unexpected return, a controversy, a last-minute signing or a tangle of rumors that were impossible to control.
To give us an idea of the dimensions of the issue – the big picture What would English speakers say? We are going to review everything that has happened, which is not little, since Henry Cavill officially announced his return as Superman to his sudden abandonment. Hold on, because curves are coming.
The Chaos Timeline
Henry Cavill is back
Our turbulent journey begins on October 24, the date on which Henry Cavill celebrated, through an Instagram post, his official return as the Man of Steel after his appearance in the famous post-credits scene of ‘Black Adam’. A news that fed the hope of seeing a potential ‘Man of Steel 2’ that had been sounding like a future project at Warner for some time.
Gunn, Safran and the birth of DC Studios
A couple of days later, the revolution came to DC Films. After months of abandonments, replacements and candidates who ended up being frogs, Walter Hamada left the ranks of the company to give up his seat to the duo of James Gunn and Peter Safran to take over DC’s film, television and animation division.
The landing of the dynamic duo gave way to a face lift for a DC Films that was renamed DC Studios and it became effective on November 1, which marked the turning point in what is undoubtedly the end of an era.
The plan
On November 10 we learned the bases of the long-term plan, estimated at a fork from 8 to 10 years, by Gunn and Safran —which, in general terms, would play on the same ground as Marvel Studios by providing a transmedia shared narrative. As confirmed by the second, his incorporation into the ranks of DC Studios supposes “A unique opportunity to tell a great shared story. A beautiful and huge story through movies, series, video games, live action and animation.”
goodbye to the multiverse
Five days later, Warner boss David Zaslav appeared to dismiss the idea of continue with the multiverse that had been underway so far. This was deduced from the example that he used in some statements in which he stated that “there won’t be four Batmans” in the new stage of DC Studios, referencing the incarnations of the Batman played by Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck and Robert Pattinson. It looks like heads will start rolling sooner or later.
Are things coming?
On November 23, Dwayne Johnson posted a video on his Twitter account in which he stated that they had to “fight hard” for bring Superman and Henry Cavill back to the DC Universe. According to the actor, recovering the British was a “protracted process over years of strategic talks”since in the ranks of Warner they were not convinced with the play-off.
These statements, of course, fueled suspicions and mistrust; opening the way to a few days in which Rumors about impending cancellations, departures and recasts Characters like Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Cavill’s own Superman and the rest of the members of the Justice League were the order of the day.
Farewell to ‘Wonder Woman 3’
On December 7, the storm came after a brief period of calm, bringing the cancellation of ‘Wonder Woman 3’. As mentioned, the director Patty Jenkins submitted to Warner a treatment of the feature film written with Geoff Johns which the company rejected without consideration, which would have made the filmmaker abandon the project without consideration. Bad business.
Half-truths and dramatic warnings
The next day, after the discard of ‘Wonder Woman 3’ put the fandom on alertJames Gunn tried to calm the waters via Twitter with a message in which he assured that “Superman is a big priority, if not the biggest” —be careful, Superman, not Henry Cavill— to later recognize that the creative decisions that will be made “They’re not going to make everyone happy”.
Warner vs. Johnson
On December 13, a new and unexpected battlefront opened up around ‘Black Adam’ and its alleged financial profitability. After the publication of an article in Deadline in which it was ensured that the film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra not only had not generated the estimated losses between 50 and 100 million dollars, but that it would have reported a net profit of 52 million .
This information was accompanied by a financial breakdown that, as reported by the Puck medium, would have been described as false by several Warner Bros. executives who, presumably, they would have accused Dwayne Johnson himself of having leaked erroneous information to whiten production.
Jenkins fights back
As if things weren’t tense enough, the next day Patty Jenkins posted a text on her Twitter account promising “flee from inaccuracies and rumors to present the facts” related with his departure from ‘Wonder Woman 3’ and the cancellation of the project. He explained it this way:
“When the backlash about the cancellation of ‘Wonder Woman 3’ began, the clickbait with false stories about me killing it or abandoning it began to spread. That’s just not true. I never left. I was I was open to considering anything that was asked of me.As I understood it, there was nothing I could do at that time to make it go ahead.
Goodbye Henry Cavill
After all this chaos the people of Warner and DC Studios had an ace up their sleeve to surprise us in this pre-Christmas campaign; and that has been none other than the departure of Henry Cavill from the Gunn and Safran project. It didn’t take the British two months to hang up the cape again after wearing it excitedly, and he shared his surprise in this way:
“After the studio told me to announce my return in October, before they were hired, this news isn’t the easiest, but that’s life. The changing of the guard happens. I respect that. James and Peter they have a universe to build. I wish them and everyone involved the best of luck and the happiest of fortunes.”
We already know what to do when we see our neighbor stripping his beards, so it is not unreasonable that during the next few weeks – if not days – we will see Gadot, Momoa and company go through the same situation as Cavill.
An uncertain future
What will the next days, weeks and months bring us? The exact plans of Peter Safran and James Gunn remain a mystery, but we are still in time to end 2022 with another couple of announcements that leave us giddy and reaffirm that The DC Studios thing is being a complete clean slate.