As the newly crowned CEOs of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran are hard at work crafting a long-term plan for DC's cinematic universe. Clearly, the goal is to bring some much-needed stability and a sense of strategy to a studio that's spent years struggling to match Marvel's success. And while Gunn won't be making any major announcements for at least a couple months, he did hint at one major component of that new strategy. Everything - from movies to streaming shows to animated series to video games - will be connected going forward.
That's a major 180 from DC's recent emphasis on standalone movies and a multiverse of heroes who only occasionally cross paths. One thing is becoming clear as Gunn teases the future of DC Films. DC is no longer simply trying to replicate the MCU model. They're going for the Star Wars approach.
The Star Wars Approach to Storytelling
The Star Wars franchise is fairly unique in the entertainment landscape because it exists as one, singular universe where all stories coexist and interconnect. The Skywalker Saga movies laid out the foundation, and all the spinoff films, live-action and animated shows, comics, novels and games build on that framework. Disney has even established the Lucasfilm Story Group in an attempt to maintain continuity between all these disparate projects.
Granted, many older books and games from the pre-Disney era are now designated "Legends" stories, but Lucasfilm doesn't really treat Legends as an ongoing concern. Those stories are relegated to a sort of museum status. They're relics of an earlier time that no longer fit into the official Star Wars tapestry, but can occasionally be used as story fodder when the opportunity arises. Every Star Wars project released since 2014 has existed as part of a singular, unified Star Wars canon.
There aren't many other entertainment properties that follow this singular storytelling approach, and certainly none on the scale of Star Wars. Halo used to be one example, as all the comics and novels have been extensions of the games, but that changed in 2022 with the debut of Paramount's Halo series and its separate "Silver Timeline." The closest comparison now might be Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed universe, as all the comics and even the 2016 movie are connected to the games.
Even Marvel doesn't try to replicate the Star Wars model. Marvel's comic book line has its own, 80-year-old continuity completely separate from the MCU. The MCU itself has a number of live-action and animated spinoff series, but that still leaves the occasional outlier like X-Men '97. And even if recent games like Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Avengers draw a fair amount of inspiration from the MCU, they exist in their own universes.
Up till now, DC's approach to building a cinematic universe has been broadly similar to Marvel's. Most live-action movies released since 2013's Man of Steel exist in the same continuity, as does the recent Peacemaker series. But there have been a handful of movies (2019's Joker, 2022's The Batman) and a great many shows that don't tie into the DCEU. Nor are video games like Gotham Knights or the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League set in the larger DCEU.
It's clear Gunn and Safran are intent on shifting this approach. Going forward, everything is going to link back to the DCEU. Not just the live-action movies and series, but even animated series and games. While DC's publishing line will probably continue to be left to its own devices, the rest of the company is pivoting in a much more continuity-driven and interconnected direction.
The Downfalls of the Star Wars Model
Modeling the revamped DCU on Star Wars is certainly one way to distinguish the DC line from Marvel. And for a studio that's changed strategy constantly over the years, having a consistent and well-defined road map would be a welcome change of pace. But that's not to say there aren't some significant downsides to the Star Wars model.
Total cross-media synergy may sound great on paper, but it can also get in the way of actual storytelling. This has certainly been the case with Star Wars in recent years, with the games and especially the comics and novels coming across as second-class citizens in a galaxy far, far away.
In the heyday of the Expanded Universe, writers were given free rein to reshape the fabric of the post-Return of the Jedi timeline. 1991's Dark Empire resurrected Emperor Palpatine. 1999's Vector Prime made waves by killing off Chewbacca. 2008's Legacy of the Force: Invincible ended with the children of Han and Leia dueling one another to the death.
It's difficult to imagine huge plot twists like those taking place anywhere other than in a live-action movie or series nowadays. The current comics and books are far more limited in scope and tend to settle for dancing between the raindrops of the Star Wars movies. Even major games like Jedi: Fallen Order and the Battlefront series have made relatively little impact on the Star Wars timeline.
And that's to say nothing of the problems the Star Wars movie line has faced in recent years. Despite the influence of the Lucasfilm Story Group, few would argue the sequel trilogy followed a cohesive road map. Now, three years after the release of The Rise of Skywalker, Disney seems no closer to actually starting production on a new movie. Instead, it seems as though every new film that's announced is either subsequently canceled (like David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' Old Republic movies) or delayed indefinitely (Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron, Rian Johnson's spinoffs).
For all the great Star Wars content we've seen in this Disney era (Andor: Season 1 being the latest and arguably greatest example), there's clearly a lot of creative dysfunction and indecision happening behind the scenes. The last thing DC Studios needs is to fall into those same traps. They can't afford to spend years with no new movies hitting theaters. No one wants a new Justice League series marred by the clashing creative visions we saw in the Star Wars sequels. And what's the point of connecting the games to the larger cinematic universe if it's going to limit which characters can appear and what stories can be told? DC needs a clear vision for its cinematic universe, but it also needs to be a studio willing to step back and let storytellers tell their stories.
DC's Multiverse vs. the Star Wars Galaxy
As much as DC is pivoting toward a Star Wars-esque approach in the years ahead, they have one major weapon in their arsenal that Lucasfilm doesn't. They have a multiverse.
As we discussed earlier, Lucasfilm is laser-focused on a single Star Wars timeline linking every single movie, series, book and game. Star Wars rarely dabbles in concepts like time travel and alternate universes, so there's not really room for alternate versions of heroes like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. DC, on the other hand, has always celebrated the fact that there's a multiverse full of infinite variations of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Sometimes these different versions will even cross paths, hence the massive spectacle of fan-service that was 2019's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.
The hope is that the multiverse is the secret ingredient that will allow DC Studios to channel the success of Star Wars while also side-stepping the franchise's persistent missteps. DC needs a coherent strategy for its cinematic universe. They need to be able to grow and evolve their characters in a way that hasn't been possible with the relatively standalone, continuity-light movies of the post-Justice League era. But at the same time, there's no reason the new DCU needs to be limited to one universe and one version of these characters.
There are already signs the multiverse is part of DC's larger strategy. For one thing, Joker: Folie à Deux is still set in its own, self-contained universe. And even as Michael Keaton seems poised to replace Ben Affleck as the DCU's main Batman, there's a completely different Dark Knight running around the world of Matt Reeves' The Batman. That universe is expanding in several different directions in the years ahead, including a Colin Farrell-led Penguin series and a theatrical sequel to The Batman.
Those two versions of Batman can easily coexist. Keaton's Bruce Wayne is the grizzled veteran mentoring younger heroes like Flash. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson's Batman is there for fans who just want standalone stories about a youthful Dark Knight and his villains. If DC wants a new Batman game tied to one of its movie universes, it probably makes more sense to focus on Pattinson's brooding detective rather than the one infamous for being unable to turn his head in combat.
That's the balance DC needs to strike going forward. There's a lot to be gained by streamlining the DC brand and building up iconic versions of these characters that can appear in all forms of media. Keaton’s return to the Batman role is meaningful precisely because it plays on the decades-long connection fans have to that character. The same goes for all those cameos in Crisis. It’s not so different from that powerful moment when Han Solo and Chewbacca step aboard the Millennium Falcon again in The Force Awakens. When there's a history to mine, and when everything is a piece of a larger tapestry, every story matters.
But at the same time, there's no reason to arbitrarily stick to one universe and force every single writer and filmmaker and designer to play in that sandbox. There’s nothing to lose by allowing darker and more idiosyncratic films like Joker and The Batman exist alongside those traditional superhero movies set in the core DCU. DC has a chance to have its cake and eat it too. They can build a cinematic universe with the scope to rival Star Wars, while still leaving room for stories that carve out their own creative niches. All it takes is developing a plan and finally sticking to it. We're still optimistic that Gunn is the right man for the job.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/james-gunns-inspiration-dc-cinematic-universe-star-wars