The DCEU is already too invested in the multiverse concept for it to be abandoned. In the aftermath of Batgirl’s unexpected cancellation, the future of the DCEU is under serious scrutiny. This development also comes as Warner Bros. Discovery, following the merger of the two companies, takes a fresh look at the studio's approach to DC-based movies, potentially posing even more jeopardy.
There has been some degree of clarity with respect to the DC Trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the three repeatedly emphasized as essential characters by WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav. While the return of Ben Affleck's Batman in the DC multiverse has made everything DC canon, and has already become too much of a key component of both DC movies and television.
The basic concept of the multiverse is one of infinite parallel realities co-existing, with a different version of everyone existing in each universe. A big element of science fiction, and even a topic of debate in real-world science, DC has been big on the multiverse in the comics for decades. With how much work modern DC movies and TV shows have done to incorporate it in recent years, the 10-year plan for DC that WB Discovery is said to outlining now simply cannot afford to ignore the multiverse. For better or worse, the concept is now so ingrained into the future of the DCEU that avoiding it is virtually impossible.
WB Has Already Committed To DCEU's Multiverse
The CW’s Crisis On Infinite Earths event first introduced the concept with all DC movies and shows as a vast multiverse while completely voiding DC movie and TV reboots, while the multiverse was also heavily emphasized at the first DC Fandome in 2020. The Flash is similarly set to expand on DC’s multiverse with Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton appearing as the Dark Knights of different Earths and other big multiverse elements and character cameos to be involved in the story, including several different versions of Barry Allen himself.
another version of Tyler Hoechlin as Superman. With all of those components, Superman & Lois by itself is driving the multiverse side of DC as much as anything. Additionally, The Batman franchise and Todd Phillips’s Joker movies are essentially multiverse movies by default, in that both exist on their own alongside other concurrent versions of their primary characters. With how much DC films as well as television shows have already put into building a DC multiverse, the ship has long since sailed on halting that.
Multiverse Movies Are Too Popular Now For DC To Ignore
DC is also far from the only driver of the modern multiverse craze, with Marvel getting in on it with Everything Everywhere All At Once, standing as A24’s biggest box office success.
With DC having already gotten the ball rolling on its own multiverse, other studios running with the same concept make it impossible to overlook. Even absent DC initiating the trend with Crisis On Infinite Earths, the multiverse has taken off and is only looking to get even more prominent in the future. That also makes DC abandoning the multiverse a non-starter, while another factor also similarly prevents it.
DC Needs The Multiverse For The DCEU To Succeed
The whole reasoning behind DC evolving into a multiverse was born out of both the potential it affords not just for events like Robert Pattinson's Batman hypothetically appearing in The Flash but also for its great storytelling freedom. Instead of a singular continuity that everything has to effectively function within, DC as a multiverse can have several going at once without any difficulty. That is also what makes it possible for a movie like Joker to become a billion-dollar hit on its own and for Ben Affleck to make more returns as Batman as Robert Pattinson establishes his version of the Caped Crusader.
Introducing the multiverse as it relates to DC is also a tool to effectively please everyone with different versions of individual characters to follow according to one's own personal preference. The Batman situation, in particular, exemplifies this with Affleck, Keaton, and Pattinson, while the potential of not just Cavill's return both also the possibilities of multiple Supermen with he, Brandon Routh, and Tyler Hoechlin each showing a different side of the Man of Steel. Batman and Superman alone have already ensured that DC's multiverse has grown to the point of being too big to ignore. With The Batman franchise and Joker 2 pushing that even further purely by existing in isolation, WB Discovery's plans cannot fail to recognize the advantages that brings, both from a commercial and critical standpoint.
For both superhero movies and even films in other genres, the multiverse is becoming the new sci-fi trend, with DC itself being significantly responsible for pushing it into the mainstream through numerous mechanisms. Whatever re-organization WB Discovery seeks to implement to the DCEU, along with generally fixing past mistakes made by Warner Bros., the multiverse that everything DC occupies cannot be discarded. As a tool for telling stories, developing characters, and simply for the logistical reason of being too prominently displayed already, the debut of DC's multiverse is too big to ever be reversed.
