With five movies under the proverbial belt, the DC Extended Universe's first four years haven't been quite what Warner Bros was hoping for. Granted, Wonder Woman proved to be an enormous critical and commercial success earlier this year,and Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were all commercially successful in one form or another. However, those latter three movies also received mixed-to-negative reviews overall, and not only did Justice League receive similar reception earlier this month, it's also failed to impress at the box office. Because of this lackluster performance and the previous speed bumps this franchise has hit, a huge restructuring is reportedly in the works for the DC movies, which includes new leadership.
Jon Berg, who has been been co-running the DC Films division with DC president and chief creative officer Geoff Johns since May 2016, will exit that position and become a producing partner with Roy Lee, who produced IT and The LEGO Batman Movie. A search is underway to find Berg's replacement, and while Johns is expected to involved with DC movies in the future, his role may become less hands-on and more advisory. Moving forward, neither of these two men will likely be credited as producers on future DC movies. There's no word yet on who's being brought in to serve as the DCEU's main overseer.
Along with Jon Berg and Geoff Johns' new roles, Variety reports that Toby Emmerich, Warner Bros' Picture Group President, is considering bringing the DC movies into the main studio operation rather than have it running as a separate division, like the relationship Disney has with Marvel Studios. This "overhaul" will likely be implemented by January, and the Warner Bros top brass are supposedly on board with these changes due to Justice League's underwhelming financial performance, as it's only made over $573 million worldwide over the last three weeks off a budget as high as $300 million. There also aren't any plans for Zack Snyder to direct other DC movies, as Time Warner is reportedly "frustrated" that he kept being brought back. However, Snyder will still be attached as a producer or executive producer on movies like Aquaman and Wonder Woman 2.
However, it's not all bad news concerning Justice League. Warner Bros apparently believe that the movie did a good job on fully introducing Aquaman and Flash, both of whom have their own movies coming out soon. Between those two, along with Wonder Woman 2, Shazam and many others on the way, DC movies as a whole aren't going anywhere. But moving forward, it sounds like we should expect some major changes with how the DCEU is managed in order to course correct.
To keep up to date on what the DCEU has coming up, consult our DC movies guide, and stay tuned to CinemaBlend for any important updates concerning the franchise.
