What would DCEU have to do to catch up to Marvel?

ShineCero

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As the title suggests, what would DCEU have to do in order to catch up to the success of Marvel Cinetmatic Universe? Avengers Infinity beat their entire Box Office (109 days to get it) within 6 days and climbing it way to a billion (still hasn't released in China and Russia yet) and already dethrone Star Wars.

Do they have to reboot everything and start over from scratch? If so, do they just wait 6-8 years in order to do it?

@"Grey Star" @"Vegetto" @"Freak" @"JamesYTP" @"gokugirl2006"
 
I think in all actuality, the biggest problem is the ideology that they can be "different". Innovation begins with the notion that nothing is completely "original", and the success of MCU stems from how they built up their universe: Iron Man, as a movie, was widely successful in bringing the character to the big screen. Then, at the very end, they tease the big goal: the Avengers. This simple formula for development hooked viewers into the MCU while they took time to really develop everyone: Captain America, Thor, etc. The main characters they choose for the movies gave even secondary ones the ability to shine after their introduction into the universe through Avengers, so whenever they released a new movie or teased a new character (IE, Black Panther as the latest addition), you were interested and hooked to see what they would create for them. Regardless of their small mistakes, you wanted to see what MCU would put out, whether or not it was good or bad.

While DCU has scrambled as a means to compete, but has not taken the time at all to create their universe outside of Superman or Wonder Woman, which of course, Superman is the most boring character in modern fiction for obvious reasons. The plot they've introduced makes sense and is unique, but the main problem I see is that no one is interested in it because it's not like MCU, that has developed each and every group that appeared in Infinity War. In this quest to be different, yet at the same time, play catch up to a universe that has been extensively developed over the course of 10 years, DCEU has shot themselves in the foot. Their current predicament is the same as if someone who wanted to win a race but is determined to do it without their legs.

They cannot be different and succeed here: no one, especially not with MCU's development looming overhead, is going to care about DC characters and plot when they take absolutely no time to develop them. People do, however, want to see a movie like Iron Man but with characters like Flash, Batman, Aqua Man, etc. It could be a movie about villains too, if they really cared, but it has to copy that setup where MCU leads the way in how they created their universe.

If they are not taking notes and mimicking their development even to a T, they will continue to fail. There is no room for "we can do it differently, and we don't acknowledge that they are the leading group for this type of genre now.", which I believe is their biggest folly. I did believe for a moment they might have changed when they made a movie specifically for Wonder Woman that took time to develop her. But given how they put so much focus on BvS setting up the Justice League, I feel the main reason why they are failing is because no one really feels much pull into seeing what they're doing. IE, I was curious to see Justice League, given that I knew BvS was a giant mess of a movie only because they were doing it to setup JL and I wanted to see what they'd do with the plot. Yet, it's not nearly the same pull I felt for Infinity War, where I didn't really care much about how it'd possibly be a let down in hype: I just wanted to see all of the characters I enjoyed watching on the big screen for the past ten years alone. The key difference being that when my buddies asked me to go see JL and Infinity War, I only went to the theater to see one of them.

And I know for damn sure, no matter how overdone and boring Thanos ended up being (Basically, Ultron reskinned with basic genocide. The Gamora attachment was nice in concept, but I didn't feel much for Thanos because we don't have enough screen time with them to develop the empathy for what comes), no one cared about the little details and execution of plot because they were like me on that front: we just want to see all the characters working together to defeat Thanos. We don't care if he's interesting or even a challenge: everyone we watched from the MCU movies over the years (minus a couple additions like Ant Man), were there and we loved it.

DCU? They can make a better story, a better plot, and make as little inconsistencies all they want (They haven't done better, don't get me wrong here haha). But in the end, they need to take time to develop their universe and not focus so damn much on MCU's success. People will be interested to see their characters shine, but they must first shine on their own before they can try to bring them together. JL proved that: they should have simply made a Batman movie, and then a teaser implying the formation of the Justice League. Just like Iron Man and the Avengers tease.

If they would have done that, that would've been a solid foundation and platform for them to steal interest in MCU and gain a following for their character development process. But obviously, that didn't happen, and now they're paying for it.
 
A reboot might be necessary at this point. We'll see. I thought after Wonder Woman got decent reviews and box office success that Justice League would've been a hit whether it was good or not. Really I think whether they decide to or not the key is that they just need to make better movies, pure and simple.

As a response to what Vegetto said I would point out that one key difference between DC and Marvel what I tend to think at least is that they've had a strong presence in the world of TV and Film for decades and maybe I'm a bit biased here on the basis that I'm a bigger fan of DC generally speaking if not of their cinematic universe, but I feel like as a result of having that presence for longer the general public has a pretty good understanding of who their characters are, what their origins are etc. so they don't really need that kinda movie. For me, Man of Steel was pretty boring, not so much because Superman is meant to be kind of a self-insert character and has very little personality but because it was ANOTHER DANG SUPERMAN ORIGIN MOVIE.  Soon as it seemed that it was just gonna be another one of those with very little nuance I kinda tuned out and just started waiting for the fight with Zod (and it was a LONG wait lol). Baring in mind I've only seen the long R rated cut of Batman Vs. Superman but I think they spent so long introducing Batman that they killed a lot of the momentum for the more original parts of it, and those parts weren't bad! A standalone Batman film would be nice eventually but since with him we know the character and just need to know the story around him, so those should be reserved for the tier two popularity characters like Wonderwoman, Aquaman or even Cyborg who real casuals. recognize but don't necessarily know much about (one they did, one they're doing). For Marvel I think that's really all of their properties other than Spiderman who they didn't have the film rights to so that worked for them. So I maybe half agree at the moment.
 
Starting from scratch seems like a good option. DCEU must bring their characters up to speed. The only characters that tried was Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman. Even their success wasn't enough for the masses. Marvel has much success with their characters and plus it held the public's interest more than the DCEU. Plus, Stan Lee has made cameo appearances in the MCU. The DCEU has a lot of work to do in order to catch up with the popularity of the MCU.
 
Abandon it entirely and just put out better marketing for the Animated Universe that can actually be interesting even if it has no over all goals, unlike the Phases for Avengers.
:kek:
 
Honestly, shifting their focus on the animated universe would sound like a good ass idea, if their animated content did not face some form of staggering. DC Comics seems to be making the same mistakes with the movies in their animated films, sloppy animations, weird additions to plot-points without build-up (The Killing Joke, while I know it was based off of a famous comic book, seemingly felt weird to make a movie out of it. It would make sense if it was a running animated series, which includes the adaption of the Killing Joke, but simply adapting it straight up seemingly feels like a strange choice).

Even if DCEU somehow managed to get their universes to come out like they intended, whether dark, gritty, or any other buzzwords, the problem is the competition with Marvel. If Disney gets Fox, they become a mega monster than before -- within 10 years, I would not be surprised if they are nearing the Secret Wars event by the time DC get their films in.
 
So, with Endgame coming out and going (with it's massive box office), what can DCEU do at this point to shape up? They have released Aquaman, which made them quite a nice set of profits, along with Shazam! raving in good reviews as a family film (but due to its release date, it got Swiss cheese to hell and back), and the upcoming Joker film and Suicide Squad film by James Gunn.

Is the DECU being abandoned and they are trying everything from scratch again? There are reports that a Batman film is in the works with a new actor for the role.
 
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