List of sabotaged *DCEU* films

[The Laughing Fish]

I know this is a long post, but I honestly don't care. It's good to look back and not forget what has happened.

Normally I don't use the term DCEU because I felt that the idea of a DC shared universe ceased to exist as soon as Josstice League came out, and everything else that came out since had tenuous continuity, at best. And I'm being generous by saying that. But I'll use the term for the sake of getting the message across.

It's amazing how badly managed the vast majority of DC films became over the years. Little did we know the studio meddling that happened during the Snyder and Ayer era was only the beginning.

The Snyder cut saga was the most infamous, but Suicide Squad 2016 was when all hell began to break loose. Initially, David Ayer denied that his film was reshot and the studio cut was exactly what he intended until he started giving hints that Geoff Johns was responsible for doing a lot of damage behind the scenes in 2019. When ZSJL was announced a year later, that's when he became very outspoken about his cut.

I want to make it clear by saying I don't blame Ayer for going along with the narrative back in 2016. His film was still financially successful despite the negative reviews, and if he had told the truth the studio would've done everything to damage his career permanently. I can sympathise why he went along with the narrative back then. But as time went by and WB continued to burn bridges with not only fans but with the talent they hired, his support for the studio and trying to take a diplomatic approach became rather obnoxious, even going so far liking tweets by trolls who attacked the Ayer cut fans. Whether he meant it or not, it's just a bad look, and sadly to say, I didn't have much sympathy when he realised at the beginning of this year that WBD have no intention of ever releasing his cut. If a harsh lesson is to be learned here, you can't be diplomatic with a rotten studio like Warners.

Justice League...need I say more? Anyone who still blames Zack Snyder for this ordeal is an idiot who suffers from Snyder Derangement Syndrome. Even if you couldn't stand Snyder's direction, I don't know how anyone couldn't have blamed the studio for this PR debacle. It got even worse when Joss Whedon was exposed for bullying behind the scenes, on top of sabotaging the original vision for a vastly inferior Avengers knockoff.

Five years later, Batgirl with Michael Keaton co-starring as Batman in a post-Flash timeline where he replaces Batfleck was produced, then shelved, because of the excuse that it would've damaged the DC brand. I know I was never at all enthusiastic about this film to begin with, but from an objective point of view, its cancellation remains a massive PR black eye for WBD. The fact that WBD didn't have the guts to notify the filmmakers and producers - these people had to find the news out for themselves - is unprofessional beyond belief. Sometimes I think Batgirl might've gained greater support online if it was set in the Burtonverse. But then again now that we know James Gunn hates Burton's Batman, any support for a Burtonverse Batgirl would've been just as futile.

Batgirl is the first out of three films that got shelved by WBD, following Scoob! Holiday Haunt and Coyote vs Acme. Although according to one of the screenwriters, the Looney Tunes movie still has a chance to come out. I doubt it because if the egotistical dickheads at Warners are taking the chance to say they regret releasing ZSJL, there's no way they want to hurt their egos even further by releasing ANOTHER film they tried to hide from the public. Anwyay, moving on...

Then there's The Flash. Initially, this was supposed to reboot the DC universe with Keaton replacing Affleck and Sasha Calle's Supergirl replacing Henry Cavill's Superman, hence Batgirl was originally made to follow the new timeline. When Batgirl was scrapped, reshoots were filmed to keep Keaton and Calle, but this time they'd be united with Cavill and Gal Gadot, and Batfleck had appeared in a post-credit scene, allegedly calling Barry out for help in a similar fashion when Flash called out to Bruce in BvS. As soon as Gunn took over as co-CEO of DC Studios, all of these reshot scenes were scrapped. After pulling the rug off of Cavill's announced return as Superman by announcing a reboot, Cavill - along with  Keaton, Calle, Affleck and Gadot - got kicked out of The Flash's ending, and reshoots for the third time had all of those people replaced by George Clooney's Bruce Wayne meeting Barry, for a cheap laugh. The reported Batfleck post-credit scene was scrapped in favour of Barry and a drunken Arthur Curry walking out of a bar, for another cheap laugh.

To be honest, judging from what I saw of The Flash, I don't think the second reshoot ending would've saved the film from getting bombed. The film itself had a lot against going for it, poor special effects, Ezra Miller's notoriety, negative fan reaction online ever since the plot was leaked, recreating the likeness of dead actors for cheap nostalgiabait. In a way, everybody else who was removed from the ending was spared from further embarrassment, and Gunn and Zaslav rightly had eggs on their face after calling the Flash "one of the best superhero films of all time".

Finally, there's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. This was another film that was planned to follow the original post-Flash timeline, and Keaton would reprise his role in a cameo. When Batgirl got scrapped, his cameo in Aquaman 2 got scrapped, and was replaced by Affleck. Momoa excitedly posted on social media celebrating Affleck's return...only for Affleck's appearance was confirmed to have been scrapped a few months later once Gunn stupidly announced his own DCU soft-reboot agenda. Ultimately, Affleck AND Keaton got screwed over by the studio.

There is a good argument that BvS was the first DCEU film that got screwed up when they chopped half an hour of the film in theaters, but at least the Ultimate Edition came out months later. There was even a rumour that Affleck recorded a voice cameo for Blue Beetle before Gunn took over, which Gunn denies. Again, with his track record of lying, who knows?

It's easy to say the DCEU, or whatever the hell one prefers to call it, is a missed opportunity. But I don't see DC on film getting any better in  the future. 2023 was a disastrous year for the brand cinematically, but they're still wasting more money to produce even more crap. If they want to lose more money and allow Gunn to have his ego trip to hijack the brand, so be it. We'll see how much of this announced DCU stuff actually gets released. Whatever happens, I'm having no part in their nonsense. I'm only thankful that ZSJL got released, because it would've been impossible if we were still waiting for it right now.