Warner Bros. Reportedly Wants One More DC Movie to Film This Year
With the recent creative changes behind the scenes of The Batman, Ben Affleck’s solo film probably won’t begin filming until 2018, which leaves a bit of a gap in Warner Bros.’ superhero schedule. Earlier this week, the studio pushed Aquaman back two months, pitting it against Sony’s animated Spider-Man movie in December 2018 — and with nothing else on the docket for the rest of the year, that leaves a sizable gap on the DC schedule.
According to Variety’s Justin Kroll, Warner Bros. is still hoping to begin production on an additional DC movie this year. That project could be one of five potential titles currently in development: Suicide Squad 2, Gotham City Sirens, The Flash, Green Lantern Corps, and Dark Universe. Of the five, The Flash seems most likely, even though the project is currently without a director (again). Despite box-office success, WB’s DC films have thus far elicited tepid reactions, but The Flash is the most promising of the bunch based on what little we’ve seen of Ezra Miller’s delightful take on Barry Allen — which could lighten the DCEU up a bit.
As for the other options: Just this week, WB tapped Legend of Tarzan scribe Adam Cozad to script Suicide Squad 2, while Mel Gibson has been floated as a possibility to direct. Gibson would replace David Ayer, who is set to helm Gotham City Sirens, the all-female DC villains ensemble headlined by Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. Back in January, the studio hired David S. Goyer and Justin Rhodes to co-write the screenplay for Green Lantern Corps; around the same time, reports revealed that names like Armie Hammer, Tom Cruise (dream big!) and Jake Gyllenhaal were on the studio’s shortlist of potential stars.
And then there’s Dark Universe, the former (and long-developing) Guillermo del Toro project, which will now be helmed by Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman with del Toro remaining on board as producer.
But don’t expect WB to rush things with any of these projects. Variety’s Justin Kroll notes that the studio is “content just shooting Aquaman this year” until another project is ready. And that may very well be the case.