Fixing the DC cinematic universe

DC comics and movies? Sounds like a worse combination than *insert joke here*. Yet, every time Warner Bros. attempts to make one of these superhero movies, a part of us buys into it.

Any fan of the superhero genre will tell you exactly why they think Justice League and Batman v Superman was such a flop. But more often than not, no one presents a viable solution to bringing back DC to the forefront of superhero cinematography.

To appease the appetites of other DC fans, such as myself, I went through stacks of comics and multiple graphic novels to come up with the aforementioned solution.

The light at the end of the tunnel - Batman

In order for DC to dig itself out of this cinematic grave, there’s a lot of changes to be made. To start, there’d need to be a complete reboot of the universe, getting rid of any of the present cast and upcoming projects.

Similar to Marvel, we’d start off with the movie for DC’s billionaire playboy equivalent, Batman. There have already been enough Batman origin movies, and anyone with any knowledge of superheroes knows exactly who Batman is and how he came to be.

Therefore the route to success would be to ditch the origin storyline, and instead focus on a Batman who has already been operating in Gotham for some time. The recently announced casting of Robert Pattinson to the role is promising, and sceptics should consider looking past his role in “Twilight” and onto some of his other works. His role in “Good Time” will definitely convince you that he will do the role of Bruce Wayne justice.  

The storyline could follow either something similar to the “Mask of the Phantasm” – an animated Batman movie – route, or something like Scott Snyder’s “Court of Owls” arc from the comics.

None other than the legendary Paul Dini would be the man assigned with the responsibility of writing and directing this movie. His success with both the animated series and the Arkham series games definitely makes him the man for the job.

The return of Superman

With the caped crusader finally receiving movie adaptation justice once more, the next step would obviously be to bring in the “Man of Steel”. Similarly, the origin storyline would be ditched, providing us with a veteran Superman instead.

Dropping the idea of following any particular comic or animated story, the path to follow would be the Lex Luthor and Amazo team up against Superman. If you’re wondering who Amazo is, well he’s an android that can absorb the power of any metahumans, meaning he can easily rival the entire Justice League himself.

The actor to star as Superman would be Matt Bomer of White Collar fame. His experience as Clark Kent on the animated film “Superman: Unbound” will prove crucial to his role as Supes.    

Top pick for the role of Amazo would be Dwanye ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and Mark Strong would make for a fantastic Lex Luthor. And to top it off, the man in the director’s seat should be Taika Waititi, the man behind Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok. Waititi’s combination of story and action, paired with the incredible direction of each individual fight will definitely play a big role in making this movie successful.

Following these two goliaths of DC would be Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Flash. The director for all three of these movies would be Patty Jenkins, as she showcased her ability to write story based action masterpieces, as showcased by Gadot’s version of Wonder Woman.

Green Lantern

The storyline for Green Lantern (GL) would be “Green Lantern: First Flight”, however, the GL in question should be John Stewart instead of Hal Jordan. An origin story arc is necessary for GL as we’ve never had a proper on-screen adaptation of this great hero. Sorry, Ryan Reynolds.

In line to put on the ring of the Guardians would be Idris Elba. Jason Isaacs, of Lucius Malfoy fame, would also be a great pick to play the role of Sinestro opposite Elba’s Stewart.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman (WW) was one of the few successes to come out of the more recent attempts by DC. Sadly, when we’re cutting out the bad, we also have to cut out the good, and Gal Gadot’s version of the superheroine has to go.

Thankfully, someone else in line for the role was Morena Baccarin, well known her roles on Homeland, Firefly and Deadpool. Similar to GL, we’d also follow an origin narrative here, only this time the path to follow would be Grant Morrison’s “Wonder Woman Earth One”.

Another crucial point to the success of this WW will be how well it ties into the eventual Justice League movie that will be in the works. *Insert Marvel style post-credit scene*

Flash

If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from CW’s run of the Flash TV series, it’s how not to write the character, and this information shall prove to be useful.

Instead of a depthless attempt at adapting “Flash: Rebirth”, the ideal way to go about the story would be, to begin with the origin story – again we haven’t had a proper Flash origin story before following into the “Flash of Two worlds” storyline – thus setting up for the concept of multiverses.

Dave Franco would make for a perfect Barry Allen, with just the right mix of humour and seriousness, add John C. McGinley in the role of the older Jay Garrick to the mix, and we’re talking about a movie likely to smash the box office.

The Finale: The Justice League

This would possibly start off with the formation of the Justice League to stop some great villain, possibly the evil Superman from an alternate dimension, where he was raised by Darkseid. There would then be a “Tower of Babel” style story, where this Lex Luthor steals Batman’s contingency plans against the entire League and implements it to defeat them.

Finally, the end of the movie would tease Justice League 2, with a Darkseid cameo in the end credit scenes.

The man to comprehend such a multilayered universe, and bring it to the ‘big screen’ can be no other than Christopher Nolan. Not just because of his time on The Dark Knight, but because only a man capable of directing movies like Inception and Interstellar can comprehend how to handle the DC multiverse.

As for Aquaman, the best way to incorporate the King of Atlantis into the League would be to bring him directly into one of Justice League movies, with the actor playing him is Charlie Hunnam of “Pacific Rim” fame.

Now that I’ve solved the problems of the entire DC cinematic universe, I’ll be waiting for that cheque from Warner Bros., the address will be attached below.

Bad jokes aside, something even more precious than money would be a series of good DC movies or at least one decent Justice League movie with a plot that doesn’t make me cringe.

Aaqib is stuck in an existential crisis loop. Send help at [email protected]