It was fun while it lasted. The DCU, Warner Bros.’ response to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is probably ending for good and switching from a darker, grittier approach to a family-friendly one that’s appealing to as many people as humanly possible. While this hasn’t exactly been confirmed by the DCU’s new leadership, previous comments from Jeremy Latcham strongly indicate this will be the future of DC on film.
In June of this year, Latcham, who came to take over DCU from James Gunn, said in an interview that he gave each of his Marvel projects the so-called “grandma test,” where he would ask whether his own grandma would find the movie appealing as someone who isn’t necessarily part of the core audience.
“And that became like a guiding light of, as we were developing the movies, I just had this sense of, ‘I don’t know if my grandma would like that,’ and that became the stand-in for, like, ‘Is this going to work for regular people that are outside of the bubble of Hollywood? What does this say for a regular family?” Latcham said (thanks, SlashFilm).
And this apparently extended as far as Marvel cutting out entire sections, jokes, or other parts of its movies because of a running joke at the studio saying Jeremy’s meemaw and peepaw wouldn’t like them. With that mindset, I think it is fairly safe to say R-rated, mature, dark, grim, and gritty DC movies we all know and love are out the window, because there is no way in hell a casual capes**t-brained moviegoer is going to be appealed to through stories like that of Peacemaker or Clayface.
This person brought untold billions to Marvel and Disney by following this exact formula in the early days of comic book movies, but we’re well beyond that point now. This is no longer an industry in its infancy needing to broaden its scope and vision to include as many people as possible and become commercially viable. The DCU movies, and especially its shows, have all been more or less successful. Yes, there are major flops like Supergirl, but let’s not pretend Gunn’s leadership didn’t turn the tide on an otherwise derelict ship aimlessly wandering the infinite waters of creative bankruptcy.
On the flip side, what Latcham’s approach inevitably led to is carbon-copy movies, each following the same structure and formula, remaining within a safe zone where the appeal to everyone results in the happiness of no one.
I will say this, though: while Latcham was at MCU, they did make a lot of good movies, like Iron Man and Iron Man 2 and the still-incredible Avengers: Age of Ultron (yeah, Ultron was right, fight me). But it is undeniable that his exact philosophy brought around the MCU’s bombastic failures, too.
And what’s worse, James Gunn himself has been liking comments saying Peacemaker is done for, and that, I think, is a real sign of the times.
