In the past Warner Bros and DC Films would announce a flurry of projects that were in development. Over the last couple of years they’ve taken a more intelligent approach by announcing projects when they’ve already been in development. Not for the sake of announcing something the day of its creation. With the mild success of HBO Max, and the everlasting draw for more live-action superhero content, Warner Bros has twelve projects in development at HBO Max. Seven of which are entirely new, while four shows from DC Universe are getting news seasons on HBO Max, and Zack Snyder gets to make his Justice League.
The seven new properties are: a prequel series for Matt Reeves’ The Batman, Green Lantern Corps, Justice League Dark, Strange Adventures, which will be a anthology series, a Batgirl movie, Peacemaker, which is a spinoff for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and lastly a Static Shock movie. The five shows that are getting continued on HBO Max are: Doom Patrol, Titans, and the animated Harley Quinn and Young Justice shows.
The Batman prequel series will revolve around the Gotham City Police Department in Bruce Wayne’s first year as Batman. While Batman won’t be in the series, Jeffrey Wright’s Commissioner Gordon will be.
Almost nothing is known at all about Green Lantern Corps, besides the fact that Hal Jordan and John Stewart, the two most popular members of the Green Lanterns, won’t be in the series… Or at least as main characters.
Justice League Dark will be produced by J.J. Abrams and his film company Bad Robot. The series will presumably star: John Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Swamp Thing, Etrigan the Demon, and maybe 1-2 other characters as the leads.
Strange Adventures will be an anthology series that takes viewers to place in a world where superpowers exist. Each episode will tell a different cautionary tale, while the show promises to introduce us to many characters from across the DC canon.
The Batgirl movie, and the Static Shock movie for that mater, are just rumors right now. Both movies are in active development, but it hasn’t been confirmed yet if either will officially be HBO Max exclusives.
The Peacemaker series has already begun filming and it will star John Cena. James Gunn wrote all eight episodes, and he will direct half of them. Warner Bros is clearly banking on the character that Gunn has called, “an inappropriate Captain America.”
Doom Patrol, Titans, Harley Quinn and Young Justice have been airing exclusively on DC Universe since the streaming service dropped in the Summer of 2018. With the app now becoming strictly comics oriented, HBO Max was given the rights to those glorious shows. All of which have new seasons in active development, with filming for Titans season 3 being almost complete.
We all know what Warner Bros has done with the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). While there have been a few movies that are a huge success to the studio, there have been a handful that were massive flops. At the end of the day, I say it’s all down to creative freedom. Letting the directors and writers have more of a focal say in what they do for their films is crucial. The DCEU is too inconsistent with their content, and letting creative freedom be a driving force behind these films, like Disney allows with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, should be their only concern. Shows like Doom Patrol are a perfect example of where DC can get to, and where they should’ve been all along.
DC and Marvel, while they’ll never say it, compete with one another all of the time. Disney+ has nearly two dozen live-action Marvel and Star Wars shows in development, with one more in Wakanda being announced as I wrote this article. Warner Bros clearly wants to compete with their biggest competitor, and they want their streaming service to be widely successful as well. By having a lot of original DC content on HBO Max, they’d be killing two birds with one stone… If done correctly.
The history books say that DC Comics are more popular than Marvel. Instead of putting in a lot of facts to back that up, I won’t. But DC has the fanbase, and they definitely have the content to be able to outdo Marvel, or to at least be more similar in terms of quality. It really seems like Warner Bros and DC are investing in HBO Max to be a success, and by having twelve DC properties in development, is a nice start.
Wonder Woman 84, while it wasn’t a perfect movie by any means, it was a huge success for its month-long tenure on HBO Max. It outdid everything that had dropped on any streaming service during that time. That was a huge win for DC, Warner Bros and HBO Max which saw a 15% uptake in subscribers. Most of whom kept their subscriptions because HBO Max has a vastly underrated catalogue of content.
HBO Max is the perfect home for many DC characters and stories to be done. Disney+ is proving that right now with WandaVision, and will continue to do so. Now it’s HBO Max’s time to shine. Zack Snyder’s Justice League airs March 18, 2021 on HBO Max, so we’ll be getting our first taste of original DC content on HBO Max very soon.
UPDATE: Zack Snyder’s Justice League has officially been Rated-R for, “strong language and graphic violence.”