There’s a great deal of excitement surrounding the imminent release of Justice League – the first live-action, big screen team-up of DC’s greatest heroes – despite a gestation period dogged by problems.
Firstly, its direct predecessor – Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice – proved to be a divisive movie when it arrived in 2016. Secondly, personal tragedy led to Zack Snyder stepping away from production – albeit after most of the film was completed. Thirdly, Joss Whedon was recruited for minor reshoots and post-production finessing. But, those involved remain optimistic about the release of Justice League – and producer Charles Roven even referred to the spectre of a sequel during a promotional event.
The event in question was the official press junket in London, which saw producers Roven and Deborah Snyder attend, alongside the principal cast of superheroes. When asked what they would like the audience to take away from watching Justice League, Roven enthused about a sequel.
“I want them to want to see Justice League 2!”
Snyder, on the other hand, took a more pragmatic, practical approach to that suggestion.
“I think we’ll open the movie and see where we go from there,”
When Warner Bros. first began to lay out their plans for a live-action DC film universe, it did include Justice League 2 as a 2019 release – but that slate has since been re-worked to the extent that there are now multiple projects being discussed as ‘in-development,’ with little clear, confirmed information about guaranteed releases. At the current time, though The Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens, Suicide Squad 2, Man Of Steel 2 and The Joker, are all wafting about in the ether, the next films we know we can expect in theatres are Aquaman (December 21st, 2018), Shazam! (April 5th, 2019), and Wonder Woman 2 (December 13th, 2019).
Justice League 2 is certainly in the ‘wafting about in the ether’ category, as opposed to being a guaranteed prospect – and, quite rightly, hinges on the performance of Justice League. This may be a source of frustration to some, but it could be argued that it’s our expectation that DC Films adhere to the pre-determined model followed by Marvel that’s our undoing here. Warner Bros. is under no obligation to build their comic book universe using the Marvel method – and is, instead, moving forward in its own way.
This is justified by the nature of the characters DC is dealing with, and their respective legacies in popular culture. Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was launched in 2008, the closest thing Marvel had to a character of the cultural standing of Batman and Superman was The Incredible Hulk – and rights issues precluded them from releasing a Hulk standalone title. So, the studio has built a cohesive film universe – essentially from scratch – using hitherto less high profile characters as the leads, and this has been Marvel’s greatest success.
DC, by contrast, is working with preconceived notions about world-famous, iconic superheroes – and its more intuitive approach to the expansion of its big screen universe certainly reflects that. Hopefully, Justice League will be of a quality that will allow for a follow-up chapter, as this particular combination of characters is a thrilling one indeed.
Justice League finally opens on November 17th.