The DC Extended Universe was WarnerMedia’s answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel had Chris Evans as Captain America, DC had Henry Cavill as Superman; Marvel had had Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, DC had Ben Affleck’s Batman, and so on.
For a while there, WarnerMedia was clearly trying to ape the success of the MCU…but it didn’t really work. Wonder Woman and Aquaman took off well enough, but Batman v Superman and Justice League both kind of fizzled.
Now, we’re in a place where WarnerMedia has gone in another direction and is making more standalone projects like Joker and The Batman, and it seems to be finding some success…but siren song of the cinematic universe may just be too powerful…
Henry Cavill may not return as Superman
One of the next big DC movies is The Flash, starring the (recently arrested) Ezra Miller as Barry Allen. According to @bigscreenleaks, the movie had a test screening last week, and some info is starting to leak out.
Another insider, @TheComixKid, wrote on Twitter that the movie “is very much a DCEU reboot, a new universe will be born by its end and the DCEU you knew will be completely different. So while some may rejoice at possibilities for the future, others will face a reality that some characters aren’t long for this world.”
One of those characters may be Henry Cavill’s Superman. “As f the test screening (this could change) Cavill appears to be done as Superman,” @TheComixKid wrote.
Henry Cavill’s Superman replaced with Sasha Calle’s Supergirl?
It’s important to underline that these are just rumors — and even if they’re true, it’s possible for things to change between now and when the movie is released — but they track. While WarnerMedia seems okay going ahead with new movies for Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, it’s already shed Ben Affleck’s Batman, replacing him with Robert Pattinson. And while Cavill has said he’d like to return as the Man of Steel, we haven’t heard anything solid on that front in a long while.
Also, WarnerMedia is developing other Superman projects featuring new actors. And another rumor has it that Cavill’s Superman may be “replaced” in The Flash by Supergirl, played by Sasha Calle. It’s hard to be sure of anything, but The Flash certainly sounds like it’s going to be eventful.
Basically, it looks like WarnerMedia is ready to try this whole superhero cinematic universe thing again now that it’s learned what not to do from its first time around. We’ll see how it goes when The Flash comes out in theaters on June 23, 2023.
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h/t The Direct