Credit: DC / Warner Bros.It’s been a rocky road for DC in film over the past decade, but things may be about to become just as turbulent for the new DC Universe.
What Happened to the DCEU?
The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) got off to a solid start with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013), which saw Henry Cavill don the iconic red cape for the first time. It grossed over $670 million worldwide and received mostly positive reviews from audiences and critics.
Its sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), also directed by Snyder and introducing Ben Affleck as the Caped Crusader, went on to gross $874.4 million at the global box office, but it was torn apart by critics. Later that year, Suicide Squad (2016) became another huge commercial success but received negative reviews across the board.
The following year saw the release of Wonder Woman (2017) with Gal Gadot in the title role. The film became a runaway success, earning rave-reviews from audiences and critics and grossing over $824 million. Since then, however, the franchise has struggled.
Justice League (2017) was a laughing stock, Birds of Prey (2020) was also terrible, and the less said about Wonder Woman (1984), the better.
All those films were box office hits, but people hated them. Among that second wave of films, only Aquaman (2018) and Shazam! (2019) fared well both critically and financially.
Still, any hope fans had for the DCEU had been squandered by inconsistent quality and jarring shifts in style and tone between films. It seemed Warner Bros. was trying to compete with Marvel’s success, but failed to remember that old adage: “slow and steady wins the race”.
Related: Goodbye, Affleck, Cavill, and Gadot: New DCU’s Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman Revealed
Justice League (2021) Proved That the Impossible Could Happen
Then Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) came along. It’s widely known that Snyder was forced to pull out of the 2017 film due to a personal tragedy, leaving Joss Whedon (Avengers: Age of Ultron) to finish his work. And we all know how that turned out.
But following a massive online campaign led by fans under the hashtag #RestoreTheSnyderCut, Warner Bros. gave Snyder the budget and freedom to redo the film in his original vision. No one ever saw it coming and it was quite a surreal moment for film and the results were spectacular.
The four-hour juggernaut bypassed theaters but became a streaming sensation on HBO Max, and was widely considered a vast improvement over the 2017 cut.
Related: James Gunn May Have Just Revealed Who the New Batman Actor Is (He’s in the DCEU)
The Snyderverse Was Complete, but the DCEU Was Dead
In the process, the “Snyderverse”, or at the very least the Snyder trilogy — now consisting of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League (2021) — was complete. Unfortunately, the next and final wave of films were just as hit and miss as the previous one.
Together, The Suicide Squad (2021), Black Adam (2022), Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), The Flash (2023), and Blue Beetle (2023) proved that the DCEU was in serious trouble. And when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) arrived, we all knew it was dead in the water. Pun intended.
Related: James Gunn’s DCU Could Be Dead on Arrival Following ‘Superman’ (2025) Box Office Run
The New DCU Is in Trouble
Fast-forward two years, and the new DC Universe (DCU) now resides under the control of DC Studios’ CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran.
But while audiences have been led to believe that this year’s Superman (2025), directed by Gunn and starring David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, was the first installment in the newly rebooted continuity, that’s not true. That title goes to the adult animated series Creature Commandos.
As for Superman, it received mixed to positive reviews from critics, with many feeling that it was just another one of Gunn’s “rag-tag group of misfits” outings like his Guardians of the Galaxy films and The Suicide Squad.
It grossed $616 million against a reported budget of $225 million — a success that paled in comparison to that same summer’s Jurassic World Rebirth, which crossed $850 million. Even in today’s current climate, there’s no excuse for a Superman film of all things not to come somewhere shy of the billion dollar-mark.
The real problem, it seems, is that fans just don’t seem to care about this new DCU — and Gunn certainly isn’t helping. Not only did he mess around with precious Superman lore in the new film, his comments around what’s canon and what’s not in the DCU have left fans feeling frustrated, deflated, and confused.
In a nutshell, parts of the old DCEU are still canon. As are certain characters. Peacemaker Season 2, which premiered earlier this year, is also canon with the new DCU, but not Season 1. Confused yet? Don’t worry — so are we.
In other words, Superman (2025) doesn’t wipe the slate clean like Gunn promised it would. In fact, the DCU is already a lot messier than the DCEU despite being just one film in.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2026) and Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2027) are next, while other films on the DC slate include Clayface (2026) and the Batman reboot, The Brave and the Bold (TBA). But overall, there seems to be little interest from fans.
The overly adult nature of Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 has also left a bad taste, as it feels completely at odds with the uplifting nature of Superman (2025).
James Gunn’s DCU Could Be Over
It took us a while to get here, but context was needed — it’s a pretty confusing history.
But if you’ve had your finger on the pulse of DCEU and DCU over the years, you’ll know how poorly Henry Cavill was handled when it came to his potential return as Clark Kent/Superman in the latter continuity.
We know that never happened, but now, Zack Snyder shared a black-and-white image of Cavill as the Man of Steel on his Instagram, beneath the equally cryptic caption “Henry Cavill is Superman,” adding, “From BvS shot with my monochrome 50mm Noctilux. 3 weeks on Instagram thanks to everyone”:
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Why Didn’t Henry Cavill Return?
In 2022, we were told that Henry Cavill, who played Superman in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and Black Adam — would be returning as the character in the new wave of films and shows, now dubbed the DCU.
But in December of that year, Cavill released a statement saying that his future involvement as Superman was no longer moving forward after meeting with DC Studios’ new chairmen and CEOs Gunn and Safran. Cavill broke the news to his fans on social media, which left many disappointed that his version of Superman would never return.
In a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, Gunn was asked about the debacle surrounding Cavill’s supposed return in the new DCU. He explained that the confusion surrounding the actor’s involvement arose from Warner Bros. announcing the star’s return while he and Safran were already outlining plans for a new Superman project, which would became this year’s David Corenswet-led film.
“It’s terrible,” Gunn said of breaking the news to Cavill that he wouldn’t be needed going forward. “We [he and Safran] were dealing with trying to figure out if we could do the job at DC Studios, and we were talking to David Zaslav [CEO and President of Warner Bros. Discovery] and all the legal people, they’re figuring out what our deals would be, and the day our deal closed, all of a sudden, they were announcing that Henry was back, and I’m like, ‘What is going on? We know what the plan is. We know what the plan is. The plan was to come in and do [a new] Superman.’ So it was really unfair to him and was a total bummer.”
Gunn added that “a lot of people” at Warner Bros. “wanted to take on what they wanted to do with DC and were trying to force their way” but that “it was just never part of the equation for David Zaslav, who was the head of WBD [Warner Bros. Discovery].”
Talking about the moment he and Safran sat down with Cavill, Gunn explained, “So yeah, we came in and that was really unfortunate. I’m like, ‘This poor guy.’ He was an absolute gentleman; a great guy about it. He said, ‘The only thing I ask is that I’m able to reveal it myself as opposed to it coming from you guys’”.
Will Henry Cavill Return as Superman?
But now, Snyder’s potential tease has us wondering: could Cavill return as Superman? If so, does this suggest that the DCEU — or the Snyderverse at least — is being restored? And if that happens, would it replace the DCU or run parallel with it? Or will Cavill’s Kal-El return via the DC Multiverse in the same way The Flash meddled with multiple different timelines?
Never say never. No one could have ever predicted that Justice League (2017) would be remade just four years later. And when you look at Multiversal films like The Flash, which brought back Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman (and even George Clooney), or Marvel films like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), which united Tom Holland with previous Spideys, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, anything is possible these days.
The real question is, where would this leave the new DCU? Could a return to the Snyderverse be the kiss of death for Gunn’s franchise, or is it already over anyway?
Would you like to see Henry Cavill reprise his role as Superman? Share your thoughts in the comments down below!