DCEU: Warner Bros/Discovery Should Focus On A Batman Universe First?

When it comes to superheroes, Batman is one of the all-time favorites for die-hard and casual fans alike. He’s held a special place in the hearts of both comic readers and movie-goers for years, or decades. In more recent productions, the Caped Crusader has been met with mixed reviews in their cinematic universe. DC, Warner Bros/Discovery, and the fans would like their shared universe to catch up with Marvel’s MCU. However, there’s a cinematic universe they could build alone with Bruce Wayne at the center of attention, the Batverse.

With recent rumblings of Matt Reeves looking to dig deeper into the Rogues Gallery for his next project, if it’s true his world will already be expanding. Not many comic book characters have the history and character development quite like Batman. He’s one of DC’s top characters, but he’s also got a whole list of developed sidekicks and villains to dig deeper into.

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Take Matt Reeves’ desire to develop movies with Scarecrow, Professor Pyg, and Clayface. Depending on how they’re written, these could easily be straight to consumers via streaming or developed as one-off series. Marvel has already built on their success with limited-run series, and DC can do the same but shift focus to its villains. We’ve already seen the success of the Joker in the Joaquin Pheonix led movie. Black Adam is being billed as the anti-hero and already has plenty of buzz surrounding its pre-release. There’s plenty to develop over multiple movies for the Batman villains.

But not all movies need to go down that path. There are plenty of characters from the library that has yet to be seen on the big screen. Even in a limited role, Robin has been barely used as a sidekick in cinematic form. If they do choose to expand the Bat-family, which Robin do they use? Dick Greyson leading into Nightwing spin-off? Jason Todd and finally getting a gritty Red Hood movie? Damian Wayne exploring more of Bruce Wayne outside of his Batman alter ego?

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Why not dig deeper into the Bat-family? What about the Batgirl movie that got canceled? Supposedly the cast and crew did an amazing job. Can’t they keep that fully-made movie in their back pocket after developing a whole universe first? What about Cassandra Cain as either Batgirl or Orphan? John-Paul Valley as Azrael? There are so many characters with the proper writing team behind them who could make compelling movies.

Batman alone has enough depth in his years that multiple movies could be made outside of things we’ve already seen before. Focusing on the character alone would allow them to develop multiple DC properties that could eventually overlap which is the problem. The DCEU has been sloppy with no real substance for its brand. They rushed to catch up to the MCU without focusing on their bread and butter. If Matt Reeves is going to spearhead projects based on villains then Warner Bros needs to go all in.

Build the Bat-verse and have cameos and post-credit scenes to tease upcoming DC projects. That’s where Marvel succeeded. Stop trying to recreate the wheel and appeal outside of your core audience.