By: John M Jerva

This weekend saw the release of Wonder Woman 1984 in theaters and HBOMAX and with it saw much success as the movie roped in a pandemic record breaking $16 million and also saw a horde of new subscribers to the service. The success has led to the news that a third film is being fast tracked at Warner Bros. with both Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins returning.

More huge news on the horizon in that DC Films is planning some big things starting in 2022 as the company is looking to release at least six films a year between theaters snd the streaming service. The report, which came from The New York Times, stressed that the bigger budgeted films like James Wan’s Aquaman sequel, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, and The Flash will obviously hit cinemas while smaller, riskier ventures like the planned Batgirl movie and Static Shock would premiere on HBOMAX.

DC Films President Walter Hamada spoke with the Times and outlined the big project and the re-tooling of the strategy as to how to release films in a COVID world. Hamada also spoke of potential spin-off series that would invade the streaming service.

“With every movie that we’re looking at now, we are thinking, ‘What’s the potential Max spinoff?’”

To make all the storylines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept 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.”

Hamada also elaborated on how the movies and spin-offs would join together and bring fans a richer universe with infinite possibilities.

“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. ‘The Flash,’ a film set for release in theaters in 2022, will link the two universes and feature two Batmans, with Mr. Affleck returning as one and Michael Keaton returning as the other. Mr. Keaton played Batman in 1989 and 1992.”

This all sounds very ambitious and it would appear that DC is looking to put their past failures behind them and take on Marvel Studios for comic book film supremacy.

“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,”Hamada said while speaking about the exciting prospects of DC’s Multiverse. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”

The article also mentioned that the long awaited Zack Snyder’s Justice League would not continue past the 4 hour event coming this spring but that doesn’t mean that the characters couldn’t continue to grow in this universe. Hamada described the new version as a “a storytelling cul-de-sac — a street that leads nowhere.” I feel that if received well, Warner Bros will definitely elaborate on the concept and give Snyder more projects to grow his vision as they will be doing all kinds of stuff to attract subscribers.

Next year will see the release of James Gunn’s Suicide Squad and Matt Reeves’ The Batman starring Robert Pattinson so the DC fan base has much to get excited for in the coming years.

Keep it locked and loaded right here for more on this developing story as we are your destination for everything action and DC!

Source: The New York Times- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/business/media/dc-superheroes-movies.html