Movies

Does Justice League Tell Us What’s Next for the DCEU?

We take a look at what direction DC’s heroes are heading in following Justice League Part 1.

Published

7 years ago

November 20, 2017

With Justice League hitting theatres and the opening weekend out of the way (you can check out our review of Justice League here), fans are busy speculating about the next chapter in the DC movie universe, and we’ll be speculating right with them.

There will be some spoilers regarding Justice League and its end-credits scene, but we’re going to stay away from any plot points crucial to the movie.

The two main options most fans think are likely tie into two of the most popular DC animated movies in recent times: Justice League: War and Justice League: Doom, but there is a third potential option based on the Flashpoint Paradox comic-book and animated movie arc.

Let’s start with the most obvious sequel — rather predictably, after the events of Justice League and the lack of Darkseid as a featured character, a potential avenue is to follow the league taking on the DC universe’s most powerful villain, who has been alluded to in Batman v Superman and Justice League, but is yet to show up.. It would follow smoothly from the events of Justice League, but since Darkseid’s usual plans have been explored in other comic book films, the studio may feel it’s repetitive to feature him in the sequel.

The second option, and this is a spoiler regarding a post credits scene from Justice League, is that instead of having a single, world-ending villain for a sequel, they may go for an entire team of villains as a counterpoint to the heroes of the League. Storylines of this kind tend to have a good reception, and would follow the arc seen in the animated Justice League: Doom film, where the League’s survival is tested as each of the League members face off against one of their own fiercest enemies. The second [spoiler] post-credits scene for Justice League shows Lex Luthor (now broken out of prison) meeting with Deathstroke [spoiler], each a nemesis to Superman and Batman respectively.

Taking this approach would also allow them to introduce a mass of new characters to the universe. The third option, which has already been announced by Warner Bros, is the plan to do a Flashpoint Paradox live-action adaptation – which could serve as a ‘sequel’ to Justice League since it involves all the members. The catch with Flashpoint, though, is that it plays out in an alternate timeline that the Flash visits where the Justice League members exist, but some members are fighting each other.

Justice League’s performance at the box-office will be a massive predictor of whether or not the studio goes ahead with any additional projects. The current slate of movies includes Aquaman’s solo movie, busy being wrapped up by James Wan, the planned Flashpoint adaptation, and lastly a Shazam movie starring The Rock and Zach Levi.

Whatever happens with Justice League, it’s clear they’ve got plans to go ahead with several projects, but which will they end up choosing? Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting us @MenStuffZA!