He is the Dark Knight

I’ve already reported on the fact that James Gunn and Peter Safran are out at DC Studio. In fact, I didn’t really expect to do a follow up to that article but, well, one big thought occurred to me that we didn’t explore then and really should address before we wrap up the post-mortem on this version of the universe (that is already clearly heading towards its ending): what if Gunn had made a BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. film? Could that have saved the universe?

Let’s be clear, Gunn and Safran were put into an unusual position when they took over DC Studios. They were told to make a new cinematic universe, carrying over only the pieces of the old DC Extended UniverseStarted as DC Comics' answer to the MCU, the early films in the franchise stumbled out of the gates, often mired in grim-dark storytelling and the rushed need to get this franchise started. Eventually, though, the films began to even out, becoming better as they went along. Still, this franchise has a long way to go before it's true completion for Marvel's universe. that they wanted. It was free rein, carte blanche to make whatever they wanted… kind of. Except there clearly were some limits, and one of the biggest and most glaring of them was the fact that Batman wasn’t really available to the duo to use, even if they said the character had a film in development.

That’s because The Batman was released in 2022 and its sequel, The Batman: Part II, was in active development. And it wasn’t like they could simply try to build something in the same world using some other characters for the project since Joker: Folie à Deux was also in active production. Two of DC’s biggest characters were off the board, both of them massive Box Office draws that Gunn and Safran couldn’t immediately use.

Sure, eventually they’d get to play with those action figures… at some point. Gunn stated that a Batman and Robin film, The Brave and the Bold, was in the works, but that film kept getting delayed. Gunn kept saying, “we’ll cast the DCU’s Batman soon,” but that also never happened. It’s pretty clear that there was a push from inside WB to let The Batman: Part II play out and hold off until that film was done before the DCU’s Batman could come in. And so Gunn had to work with what he had left on the board.

Don’t get me wrong, SupermanThe first big superhero from DC Comics, Superman has survived any number of pretenders to the throne, besting not only other comic titans but even Wolrd War II to remain one of only three comics to continue publishing since the 1940s. is a great character, and he can carry his own film. If we look at raw numbers, though, The Batman made close to $160 Mil more than Gunn’s Superman ($772.3 Mil vs $618.7 Mil) on similar budgets. Batman, in short, is a draw. In launching the DC UniverseThe successor to WB's failed cinematic universe, the DCEU. Headed by James Gunn and Peter Safran, this new DC Universe carries over some continuity from the former film and TV series while crafting a new, rebooted universe for the future. the way he did, Gunn could use one of DC’s biggest heroes, Supes, but he couldn’t actually touch the biggest of them all, Bats, until everything else was done and there wouldn’t be any kind of audience confusion.

But let’s imagine that he was able to use Batman. Let’s say that no one at DC cared if there was brand confusion, and no one was worried about two Batmans in different projects leading to people going, “why should I care about either of them?” Or, maybe The Batman doesn’t even exist in this example, and Gunn has the freedom to do whatever he wanted, on whatever timeline he wanted, to set up and launch the full DCU his way. Would that have saved his vision? More than likely, yes.

Consider that those that disliked the DCU used the fact that it wasn’t making boffo Box Office numbers against it. If Gunn had Supes and Bats to play with he could have launched each of them, back-to-back, and likely made the first two films in his franchise into huge successes. Even if this theoretical Batman film did similar numbers to The Batman, that would be two back-to-back Box Office hits in a row, which would easily shore up Gunn’s position in the studio. Of that there can be no doubt.

But it also improves things a step further. Supergirl was a bomb and we could look at it as the likely knife that stabbed Gunn’s position right in the heart. The film needed to be a success out of the gate, proving Gunn’s vision. Instead it threw cold water on the whole DCU concept and made everyone (at WB) start to question if Gunn was really the right man to (co)run a studio project like this. Clearly the answer was “no” for the executives at Skydance.

If we replace Supergirl with Batman, suddenly things look very different. And that one switch also cascades into other projects. Clayface likely would feature a cameo from Bats, which would probably have brought in more viewers. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the fact that Clayface doesn’t force a Bat cameo into the film and lets the villain stand on his own, but at a basic commercial level the film needed Batman if it was ever going to make more than $125 Mil or so at the Box Office. Having a Batman already in the DCU would have solved that.

Batman also probably would show up in Man of Tomorrow in this version of the franchise. Now, sure, maybe we do see a Bat cameo in the upcoming film, but considering the fact Gunn said Bruce Wayne hasn’t been cast yet, I honestly doubt that would be the case. But if you put Batman into a Superman film, you could likely see the movie make even more money (especially if it’s a good film and not a cinematic disaster like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). Man of Tomorrow is going to have a lot of cameos from a bunch of different DC heroes (including, maybe, Wonder Woman), but having Batman in there would make it even bigger.

And at that point who knows where the franchise goes. Likely Gunn sticks around at least until a Justice League (or Justice Gang) film is done before he naturally steps down on his own (he’s said in his statement after his resignation that he’s actually relieved to be leaving the job as it was very stressful, so I don’t think he would have stayed in charge for decades), and finishes his whole vision for the first chapter of the DCU before handing things off to someone else. Everything that comes after Man of Tomorrow would look very different, and uniquely James Gunn, and this Batman-ified version of events would have more than likely let us see that.

Really, it’s a mess of WB’s own making, and Gunn and Safran had to try and do the best they could with what they were given. WB wanted a cinematic universe, but they had already failed to make one before. They wanted to build a big franchise, but they also kept greenlighting one-off films that pulled key characters away so they couldn’t be properly used. WB wanted a creative team in charge at DC but then saddled them with a bunch of old projects and told them to “make it work”. I’m honestly not certain anyone could.

Not having Batman to play with was an absolute death sentence for this franchise. It’s one thing to take matters slow and build out a franchise properly, which Gunn tried to do. But to try and do it with one of your biggest draws off the table was something Gunn’s vision of the universe couldn’t recover from. Batman is too big to leave on the sidelines, but WB functionally forced Gunn to do it, and that spelled the end before Gunn’s DCU even got started.