Warner Bros. isn’t going to win back everyone, and it would be a mistake, one that the studio made in the past with the DCEU, to even think that they can. Attempting to make films for everyone resulted in the theatrical cut of Justice League (2017), a film for no one. And it will take time to rebuild DC’s fandom, to unify the parts that can be unified, and simply let the rest go. Not everyone is going to be sold,
and expecting a billion-dollar Superman film out the gate would be absurd, but of course, we’ve been down that road before. Perhaps the simplest lesson for this current regime comes from the film that spearheaded a DC cinematic universe in the first place, The Dark Knight. “Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”
That means offering consistency and not changing directions every time some critics and certain segments of fandom become blinded by nostalgia or throw tantrums when the story isn’t told the way they wanted it to be. That means decisiveness and letting filmmakers do more than simply adapt the familiar, but challenge what we think we want from these movies and what we think we know about these characters. The DCU has to do more than make fans believe a man can fly. It has to make them believe that this time, there’s a willingness to stay the course and see that flight to its destination. Only then will the DC film fans be found again.