2017 is looking to be quite the year for comic book movies, and in particular for DC and Warner Bros. who will finally kick off their stand-alone films featuring popular DC characters.
We have, of course, already seen Man Of Steel send Superman soaring back onto screens, which revived the franchise a few years ago, but now, following Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice and then the DC villains movie Suicide Squad, both of which scored huge numbers at the box-office, the studio are throwing some of the lesser known characters into the mix.
First up is Wonder Woman, which will arrive in the summer of 2017. The film sees Gal Gadot reprise the role from Batman V Superman, and also sees Hollywood heavyweights Chris Pine, Robin Wright and Danny Huston join the cast. The film will be the first to feature a DC character that isn’t Superman or Batman in decades. The character of Wonder Woman is well-known, but they haven’t got the support of previous films, or merchandise and other tie-ins – for example, there are many action figures, video games and there are also Batman slots that you can play online, but not that many for Wonder Woman.
Apart from Wonder Woman, we do have an ensemble DC superhero movie lined up for November. That film is the Justice League, and will once again feature Wonder Woman, but this time alongside Batman, Cyborg, The Flash, Superman, Aquaman and many others. Zack Snyder is directing the film, which proceeds a further couple of stand-alone films in 2018, Aquaman, which is to be directed by James Wan, with Jason Momoa reprising the role of the title character.
After that, it is expected that Ben Affleck will move forward with his long-awaited stand-alone Batman movie. The Batman, as it is said to be called, is co-written by Affleck and Geoff Johns and Affleck was originally mooted to direct the film, but he backed out just a couple of weeks ago. Following that, a list of directors were said to be interested in tackling the project, and top of that list was War For The Planet Of The Apes helmer Matt Reeves, but those talks have also said to have stumbled.
With stand-alone films for The Flash and more planned for further afield, there’s no sign of the DC franchise going away. More news as it comes our way.
