Further reports have suggested that a Batman movie has been cancelled, along with more details of Wonder Woman 3 being pulled.
There are lots of wheels turning at Warner Bros at the moment, as James Gunn and Peter Safran – the newly-appointed heads of DC Studios – look to piece together their cinematic vision for the future of the comic book-inspired universe.
Reports are suggesting that the DC Universe is about to get more streamlined, with stories yesterday suggesting that Patty Jenkins’ planned Wonder Woman 3 is set to be one of the highest-profile cancellations under the new regime. In turn, that has naturally led to speculation that other characters from Zack Snyder’s ‘Snyder-verse’ are also facing the chop, including Henry Cavill’s Superman, who was only recently bought back into the fold with promises of a sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel.
It’s important to note that none of this is yet confirmed and the information is coming from an increasingly wide spread of sources.
Still, Deadline (who broke yesterday’s story) is now reporting that it was Patty Jenkins who walked away from Wonder Woman 3 after her submitted story treatment raised concerns with Warner Bros executives. Jenkins was reportedly offered another pass at the story but instead chose to leave the project altogether.
Meanwhile, Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic podcast has added to the story, claiming that a Michael Keaton-led Batman film was also in development until Gunn and Safran took over. That project, along with several other appearances that Keaton was set to make in the cape and cowl have been cancelled. There’s some speculation as to what that film would have looked like, a Batman Beyond project perhaps, but it seems to be firmly off the table now.
Whilst the news yesterday led to widespread reports questioning the future of those core Snyder-verse characters, it doesn’t yet mean it’s curtains for Cavill, Gadot and company. The films (even Black Adam according to some reports) make money and there are reportedly many inside of Warner Bros that aren’t relishing the huge potential expense that would come with fully retooling the DC Extended Universe.
James Gunn took to Twitter to address the reports, claiming that whilst some of the stories were true, others were not, stating: “Peter & I chose to helm DC Studios knowing we were coming into a fractious environment, both in the stories being told & in the audience itself & there would be an unavoidable transitional period as we moved into telling a cohesive story across film, TV, animation, and gaming.
But, in the end, the drawbacks of that transitional period were dwarfed by the creative possibilities & the opportunity to build upon what has worked in DC so far & to help rectify what has not. We know we are not going to make every single person happy every step of the way, but we can promise everything we do is done in the service of the STORY & in the service of the DC CHARACTERS we know you cherish and we have cherished our whole lives.”
Putting the characters and stories first is undoubtedly what fans of the DC world want, but there will be more than a few creators in Hollywood feeling pretty nonplussed right now that reports about the future of their projects are emerging in the press before they themselves have been informed.
Warner Bros is already struggling to rebuild relationships with its creative partners following a string of high-profile fallouts with the likes of Christopher Nolan and Legendary Entertainment, not to mention cancelling Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s completed Batgirl movie. We’ll bring you more on the fallout from this story as we hear it.
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