The upcoming DC movies slate is going through some major changes, including Warner Bros. Discovery scrapping Batgirl and putting into motion a new 10-year plan for the superhero franchise. While projects like HBO Max’s Green Lantern series and the Black Canary movie have been confirmed to still be in development, there’s still worry among fans that certain other pieces of DC content might be on the chopping block. To that end, before the Warner Bros./Discovery happened, the former studio reportedly had planned to deliver a major DC crossover event to the DCEU, alongside a handful of other big movies.
Any person who goes deep on DC Comics lore is surely familiar with Crisis on Infinite Earths, the crossover written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by George Pérez that saw both DC heroes being recruited by The Monitor to defeat the Anti-Monitor, who intended to destroy the multiverse. Many fell in battle during this event, including the Kara Zor-El version of Supergirl and the Barry Allen incarnation of The Flash, and while the Anti-Monitor was ultimately defeated, the end result was the DC Universe being rebooted and condensed to literally just one universe. As shared by THR, DC Films president Walter Hamada had planned for the DCEU to tackle a Crisis on Infinite Earths “event,” but it doesn’t sound like this is in the works anymore.
As far as spectacle goes, Crisis on Infinite Earths would certainly have been a good way for the DCEU to deliver an event to audiences comparable to what the MCU provided with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. However, there is something puzzling about this plan. In late 2019 and early 2020, The CW delivered its own Crisis across the DC shows Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman. While there’s nothing wrong with having two adaptations of Crisis, this crossover saw Grant Gustin’s Flash meeting Ezra Miller’s Flash, meaning the DCEU has already been through a version of Crisis on Infinite Earths. So would The CW Crisis have been acknowledged at all, or would the DCEU’s take on this story have acted like this was the first time Crisis happened?
In any case, along with Crisis on Infinite Earths, THR also shared that there were rumors about the DCEU introducing the Secret Six, a team of antiheroes and supervillains that have history with the Suicide Squad in the comics. It was also public knowledge that Supergirl, Green Lantern Corps and Static Shock were in development, as was a Black-led Superman movie being produced by J.J. Abrams and written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. According to the publication, none of these projects have directors attached, and it’s hard to say if any of them will move forward.
Should a cinematic version of Crisis on Infinite Earths end up happening, or if the DCEU decides to greenlight a different type of explosive crossover event, CinemaBlend will let you know. For now, Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods are set to come out later this year, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, The Flash and Blue Beetle are all still included in the lineup of 2023 movie releases.
