Wonder Woman 1984 may be paving the way for more DC superhero movies to be distributed via HBO Max. The studio has announced that two new DC movies will premiere each year on the streaming service in addition to the already planned theatrical releases.
Obviously, those pics aimed at the cinema are the more expensive high-profile ones, and WarnerMedia hopes to release four of those a year. Those will likely include The Batman, The Suicide Squad, The Flash, Black Adam, Aquaman 2, and Shazam! 2. Lower-profile or riskier flicks, like Static Shock and Batgirl could go straight to HBO Max. Just a guess, but this will likely also be the outlet for The Deep (a planned low-budget horror spinoff of Aquaman) and Amazons (based on Wonder Woman’s tribe), as well as the female-fronted Plastic Man-inspired film in development.
DC Films president, Walter Hamada, discussed these plans with the New York Times:
“With every movie that we’re looking at now, we are thinking, ‘What’s the potential Max spinoff?’”
There are also plans to develop tie-in TV series, including a police procedural that will connect to The Batman, and The Peacemaker, starring John Cena, a character from The Suicide Squad. In both cases, the directors of the films (Matt Reeves and James Gunn, respectively) are directly involved with creating the shows.
This plan is somewhat similar to the approach Disney is taking with its Marvel Cinematic Universe, as it will continue to release those features theatrically, but is set to roll out a full slate of related TV shows starring the actors from the films. These programs will release exclusively on Disney+, with WandaVision arriving in January to be followed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Loki, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, the animated What If…?, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, and Armor Wars. (Disney is taking a similar approach with Star Wars.)
WarnerMedia/Warner Brothers’ DC movie franchise has been hit or miss, to say the least. Aquaman and Joker both made over $1 billion each, and Wonder Woman, and Shazam! were successful. But Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, Suicide Squad, Justice League, and Birds of Prey all underperformed, and in most cases, were poorly received by critics and viewers. That has resulted in the studio pulling back on its planned output. So it’s surprising that the studio suddenly plans to release four new theatrical movies a year AND two made-for-streaming features. But we’ll see if they actually pull this off and what the result is.
What movies would you like to see created exclusively for HBO Max?
