The DCEU started in 2013 with Man of Steel and then moved quickly to develop a shared universe like the MCU. Their plan had the team up movies first and then individual stories later which many people felt was a a plan set for failure. Unfortunately, they were right, but I feel like that’s due to poor filmmaking and not the DCEU’s planning.
The DCEU HAD to Play Catchup
By the time the DCEU’s first film came out, Man of Steel in 2013, the MCU had already released 6 films as well as The Avengers. If DC were to follow in the same fashion, then they wouldn’t have released a Justice League movie until at least 2017, by which point the Infinity Saga was reaching its epic conclusion. DC had to do something different to catch up to Marvel while still building up characters and a world that they all live in.
As I talk about in Marvel will Never have Another Infinity Saga, the novelty of watching a shared universe will ware off 1 day and DC would have known this. By the time they entered the scene in 2013, Fox was releasing X-men films again, Marvel was in their 2nd phase of films, and the industry had made a switch towards superhero films. Superhero fatigue was going to set in 1 day and DC simply didn’t have the time to plan anything expansive so had to get creative.
According to unreleased documents regarding Zach Snyder’s Justice League plans, he had planned to catch up by having an epic trilogy of Justice League films first and then expanding on the world after that. This could have worked since it would have caught them up to speed with Marvel but also gives them an opportunity to explore areas of superhero media that marvel hadn’t touched on yet, mainly the aftermath of big events. This is what the animated universe did well.
Everyone knows the DC hero’s
The DCEU can jump straight into big events because everyone and their nan knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne, and he witnessed his parents murder behind the opera house. Even with lesser-known stories, such as Aquaman and his relationships within Atlantis, everyone still knows who that hero is and their basic powers.
When it comes to starting a universe, this means that the DCEU doesn’t have to spend as much time establishing these heroes with their own stories IF those stories aren’t too different from what everyone knows. This is where BVS messed up because Batman killing is not only the opposite of what everyone knows but there’s also no set up for why he now kills. It could have worked, and yes, I know that’s a very controversial statement, but it required set up.
The DCEU had to be different from the MCU
By virtue of coming first, the MCU will always be what every other franchise is compared to and DC had to figure out a way to compete with the MCU without copying it. They chose to tell darker stories with lots of stylish camera shots and an epic soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer. Like everything else with the DCEU, this approach could have worked but the execution let it down.
Making matters worse was the fact that most superhero stories will have the same plot of good guys vs bad with good guys winning in the end which would have drawn further comparison. By 2016 both the MCU and the X-Men were either building up to or at their final battle which left the DCEU in a difficult position. Whatever they did, they were going to be last to the punch and would have to endure the challenge of telling a story that’s similar but different enough from the rest.
An attempt to be darker was a clever move since around the time of the 2nd Avengers movie, Age of Ultron in 2015, audiences were comparing that the MCU felt a little too safe. There wasn’t anything particularly visually appealing about any of the films, the soundtrack was forgettable, and they all seemed a bit too similar to each other. The DCEU therefore offered something different with a director known for being very cinematic and a composer known for epic symphonies. On paper, the DCEU should have blown the MCU out of the discussion.
In Summary
- The DCEU had no choice but to catch up to the MCU
- DC had an advantage of everyone knowing their heroes so could skip some of the set-up work
- Every studios franchise was going to be compared to the MCU so the DCEU had to be different to avoid being a copy
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