It’s long been assumed by the public at large that DC’s main goal with their movies was to match the success and format of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. David S. Goyer, writer of Man of Steel, says it was always a crazy goal.
Not only are they completely different animals, but DC also got a late start on the whole interconnected-massive-universe thing. That was thoroughly felt upon the release of Justice League, where it felt like most of the main cast hadn’t even gotten origin story films yet. With many viewers mostly unfamiliar with the Flash or Cyborg, on top of the major production issues and the director changes, the movie was destined to fall apart.
David S. Goyer recently appeared on the podcast Happy Sad Confused, where he sat down to dive into his own career, and explained why he thought DC’s attempts to mimic Marvel were misguided…
I know the pressure we were getting from Warner Bros., which was, ‘We need our MCU! We need our MCU!’ And I was like let’s not run before we walk … There was this revolving door of executives at Warner Bros. and DC. Every 18 months someone new would come in. We were just getting whiplash. Every new person was like, ‘We’re going to go bigger!’
“It was crazy how much architecture was being built on air. This is not how you build a house,” Goyer added.
READ MORE: Every DC Extended Universe Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best
Apparently, during this time, executives at DC were attempting to build a roadmap as to how they were going to be able to achieve an MCU of their own. But the MCU built gradually, while DC tried to go straight from Man of Steel to crossover movies like Batman v Superman and Justice League. And now the DC Extended Universe is winding down, with the company about to try the whole thing again from square one.
You can watch Goyer’s appearance on Happy Sad Confused below:
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