Last Friday, screenwriter Marc Guggenheim announced in an interview that things have been moving forward in the future between DC Comics and Warner Bros. with the completion of a first treatment for The Flash and the start of work on Green Lantern 2. The news came out after three months of waiting, as once the two treatments are completed, Guggenheim, as well as writers Greg Berlanti and Michael Green, will decide which project they want to develop a full screenplay for and put into production. That decision, however, won't be the only major announcement from the comic company and the movie studio in the coming weeks.
THR is reporting that WB CEO Barry Meyer has announced that in the coming weeks, there will be a meeting and an announcement that will mold how the studio and DC Comics work to deliver more superhero films to the masses. According to Meyer, the company has looked at their alliance with DC in only a "custodial way" but have plans to become "much more entrepreneurial." It's being heavily speculated, and rightfully so, that this move has a lot to do with the completion of the Harry Potter series, which will end in June of next year when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is released.
So now comes the speculation about what the major move will be, but it's hard not to think in one direction: The Justice League. With Marvel already bounds ahead of them, The Avengers to start filming early in 2011, it's really the only move that DC can make in order to keep up. But even if the team-up isn't the ultimate goal, we should expect to see a flourish of solo films in the coming years, especially from characters that have never seen big screen treatment (I'm looking at you, Wonder Woman). Having never sold off the rights to their characters like Marvel did (Spider-Man to Sony, X-Men to Fox, etc.), DC and Warner Bros. have been standing on a pile of gold for decades that they've never really decided to dig in to. Looks like now is finally that time.
