When I was a child I watched many franchises. I would watch Beyblade, Pokemon, Digimon, and Dragon Ball Z (my favorite anime), but one series that always had my attention and made me the DC fan I am today is the Justice League series. That show introduced me to my favorite superhero, Superman, and led me to watch the Richard Donner Superman films. Something clicked when I watched the Justice League series and I don’t know why. Possibly because the writers did not make the show all about superpowers, but also made the characters have personality and relatable in some ways, similar to how I feel about the Young Justice series. This led me to reading famous comic storylines and following various characters journey’s. I honestly don’t know why I haven’t been as attracted to Marvel as I was to DC, but I love the MCU and with the Fox acquisition we can see more of the Fantastic 4, X-men, X-Force interacting with the Avengers.
The reasons why I love the Justice League and Young Justice series is the same reason I love the DCAU (DC Animated Universe). The character developments, interesting story elements, and the care that they give these characters overall excites me for the future of the DCAU, but to only make it for straight to DVD and release it on the DC streaming service undervalues the true potential this universe has. That is why I believe it should be released in movie theaters as a separate universe; similar to how Joker will be released in its own elseworld universe. Hope you have your drink and snacks ready because I will be going through three reasons why Warner Bros. should make this move.
DCAU CRITICAL AND AUDIENCE RECEPTION
Besides my enjoyment as a factor for the DCAU to be released in theaters, critical reception and audience scores also dictate that DC has another franchise they can implement in their movie theater releases. Following scores and pictures are from Rotten Tomatoes.
Justice League: War kicked off the DCAU New 52 continuity in 2014 after the DC animated film Flashpoint: Paradox. Even though critics did not give the film great scores (Average 5.75/10), the audience scores (Average rating 4/5) showed that there is some disconnect but the audiences showed love towards the first film of the franchise.
The trend continued for the DCAU with Son of Batman that introduced Damian Wayne received decent reviews from critics (6.3/10), but favored by audiences (3/5).
Now every franchise as a few average to mediocre films in its series. As it is rare to find consistent high quality in every franchise. So, if Warner Bros. wanted to know what is the lowest they can possibly reach and the highest potential, then these two films could be used as measurements.
One of the best rated films in the franchise with many reviews was the 2018 release Death of Superman. Critics loved it by giving it a 92% rating (7.3/10), and so did the audience (4.1/5).
One of the lowest rated films in the franchise was the third film out of the currently twelve movie franchise Justice League: Throne of Atlantis. Critics gave it 5.7/10 while the audience score was a 3.6/10.
The DCAU franchise has had consistent great critical and audience reception since the third film in the franchise, and so far there are many more films confirmed to come out this year.
BOX OFFICE RECEPTION AND COMPARISON
If we took the first film (Justice League: War) sales, after combining blu-ray sales and DVD sales, the film made $5,210,352. This is a film that had mixed critic reviews, but the audience reviews were extremely positive. To compare Justice League: War to other animated films, it would have to be the beginning of the franchise to have fair comparison. Spider-Verse and the first Incredibles are good examples as both are the first film in a trilogy, and both are animated superhero films. The budget obviously will not be the same since both films were geared towards theatrical release compared to a straight to DVD release. All box office numbers are through Box Office Mojo.
Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse was released during December 2018. We will never know if it would have performed better since its competitors were Bumblebee, Mary Poppins, and Aquaman. Spider-Verse had a budget of $90 million and by its final run received a worldwide total of $374,765,068; disregarding percentage splits between theaters and movie studios, that is approximately $285 million profit with already spin-off films of Spider-Gwen and Spider-Noir on the way with an expected direct sequel.
Now the famous superhero film known as The Incredibles came out in 2004. Even though this film has aged and the climate of watching superhero films has grown since, The Incredibles had a $90 million budget with a worldwide total of $633,019,734 with a critic score of 97% (8.3/10), and an audience score of 75% (3.5/10).
I use these numbers as comparison, but not exact replicas of what DC’s animation will get because there’s several factors that come in to play, but if shown how the critical reception and audience responses are for both Spider-Verse and The Incredibles and compare those to the DCAU then it is not far fetched to believe that Justice League: War could not have similar success, and the franchise overall.
STORYLINE POTENTIAL
What DC Films has done now is that they have created another universe for their live-action films which are elseworld stories. The first elseworld story will be Joker; which gives a character-driven story about a man that goes through different levels of insanity and finally embraces the role of The Clown Prince of Crime. Depending on this film’s performance, we could see more takes on characters out of the main continuity; bringing a more comic book feel to theaters as in comics there’s a main continuity with spin-offs and a multiverse. Also, this gives plenty of storyline potential for animation. We are already seeing that in the 2019 slate of the DCAU and future years lineup:
Batman: Hush was a comic book series in 2002 that changed the game for Batman, and now it will be released as a straight to DVD and released on the DC streaming service. With the popularity, DC can easily release this in theaters and make more of a profit instead of straight to DVD release; but with a lot on the line there would probably be an increased in budget to improve animation.
The other in-universe film for this year will be Wonder Woman: Bloodlines. Even though the plot is unknown, there is still potential for this film to do well if there is a good word of mouth; especially since Wonder Woman has become a hot commodity since it’s Wonder Woman solo film in 2017 and a sequel coming in 2020.
An argument for why these films are not in theaters is that they have “TV quality” animation compared to films such as Spider-Verse and The Incredibles and any major Disney/Pixar film; which is a fair argument. The way to solve this would be to increase the budget and have a longer time to animate the film. Many of these animation films take years to complete, so a lot of planning of upcoming slates would be necessary. The potential of revenue for DC animated films to be set in a separate universe on the big screen is phenomenal.
I grew up a DC fan, and will continue to be one forever, but the idea that animation films are for children or should be DVD sales are outdated. Sales and reviews have debunked that only children can enjoy films like this. Imagine Flashpoint: Paradox in theaters with a movie budget, or Batman: Under The Red Hood (just an example as I know it is not part of the DCAU). Warner Bros. should consider making these films part of the theater experience as I am sure a lot of us comic book fans would love to see these on the big screen and see our favorite stories come to life. Think about this Warner Bros., you will not regret it.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, Amazon, IMDB
Just a guy that grew up on DC and the MCU, anime, and video games and loves traveling across the world and learn about different cultures.
