Having kicked off a Cinematic Universe this year with Man of Steel, it’s clear that Warner Bros. is looking to capitalise on its roster of DC Comics superheroes in an effort to make up ground on Marvel Studios; Zack Snyder rocked Comic-Con with the announcement that The Dark Knight would join Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel in 2015 for Batman vs. Superman (which is rumoured to include cameos for Wonder Woman and The Flash), while the Scarlett Speedster is rumoured to be getting his own solo movie in 2016, as well as venturing onto the small screen with a potential series spinning out of The CW’s Arrow.
And on the small screen it’s not just The Flash in the pipeline either. While The CW’s Wonder Woman origin series Amazon looks to be on hold for the foreseeable future, the network also has an Hourman pilot incoming (along with an adaptation of Vertigo’s iZombie), while Fox is developing a Jim Gordon-centred series Gotham for Fox, and NBC is busy putting together a pilot for Constantine, who also happens to be part of director Guillermo del Toro’s Justice League Dark feature film Dark Universe. And on that subject, the Pacific Rim helmer has offered a brief update on his proposed team-up of DC’s supernatural element, during which he revealed that Warner Bros. has plans for “the entire DC Universe.”
“We’re still on [Justice League Dark], writing, and hopefully it will happen but there are no developments that are new,” del Toro tells Cinefilos. “We’re still at Warner Bros., they are making plans for the entire DC universe. All the superheroes, all the mythologies, and part of that is Justice League Dark. They’re planning on TV, movies, and all the media, so we have to fit into that plan.”
Now, it remains to be seen whether WB’s big screen and small screen DC universes will turn out to be connected a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but either way it looks like there’s a bright future ahead for DC Comics fans…
Originally published November 12, 2013. Updated April 15, 2018.
