A new interview with DC Films chief Walter Hamada has revealed much about the future of the DC Extended Universe. The biggest revelation revealed early in the New York Times piece: DC will begin releasing four films a year every year starting in 2022.
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Those films, for that first year in 2022 will be, “The Flash,” director Matt Reeves‘ “The Batman,” “Aquaman 2,” and not official, but very likely, “Black Adam.” Several of these films were announced as moving to 2022 earlier this year and the “Black Adam” movie, originally scheduled for December 2021, was left undated, meaning it’s very likely the third DC Film that will be released that year. “Shazam 2” is currently dated for 2023, but DC has no films scheduled beyond that yet.
Much of the article centers around the idea that the incentive for four films a year and an aggressive plan is because Warner Bros. and DC Films are trailing so far behind Marvel, both in a unifying plan, a robust slate, and financial figures (Marvel currently dwarfs DC).
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One of the strange dilemmas that DC Films will face that year is introducing a new Batman—Robert Pattinson in Reeves’ aforementioned “The Batman”— and then reintroducing Ben Affleck as the Batman in “The Flash” movie.
To make this all work for audiences? DC Films will officially be introducing the idea of the multiverse and the concepts of Earth 1 and Earth 2 (etc., etc.) to differentiate the multiple versions of characters.
Here’s the NY Times explaining it.
To make all the storylines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to the concept of a comic known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously. Coming up, for instance, Warner Bros. will have two different film sagas involving Batman — played by two different actors — running at the same time.
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And the specific details of who is on Earth one and who is on Earth 2: in short, the regular DCEU on Earth One, and all the adult properties on Earth two.
The answer is the multiverse. Boiled down, it means that some characters (Wonder Woman as portrayed by Ms. Gadot, for instance) will continue their adventures on Earth 1, while new incarnations (Mr. Pattinson as “The Batman”) will populate Earth 2.
And of course to make things even more complicated, “The Flash,” set for fall 2022 will link the two universes and feature two Batmans, Affleck returning as one and Michael Keaton returning as the Batman he played twice for Tim Burton in 1989 and 1992. So three Batmen in total for 2022, got it?
“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,” Mr. Hamada told the NY Times. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”
The irony might be that Marvel will arrive at a multiverse plan first. The Marvel-produced Sony Pictures film “Spider-Man 3” will explore the multiverse in December of 2021 and that will actively connect to “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness” in early 2022, months earlier than “The Flash.”
Here’s a reminder of DC Films’ upcoming slate. Several pictures are in the works, like the recently announced “Wonder Woman 3,” but none of them are slated for release yet.
The Warner Bros. release dates so far:
— THE BATMAN – 03/04/22
— THE FLASH – 11/04/22
— AQUAMAN 2 – 12/16/22
— SHAZAM! 2 – 06/02/23
— BLACK ADAM – UNDATED