After a 10-year run that could generously be described as inconsistent at best, the DCEU will draw its final breath in December when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom finally comes to theaters two years behind schedule.
To say there’s been more than a few ups and downs during that period would be an understatement, but $6.8 billion at the box office isn’t a bad return, regardless of a disastrous 2023 that’s seen Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle all tank spectacularly at the box office.
While licensing titles from Warner Bros. has proven incredibly fruitful from Netflix, the streaming service acquiring the majority of the DCEU back catalogue for distribution the exact same months the shared universe dies off for good is pretty much the exact opposite of striking while the iron is hot.
That being said, it’s not as if the majority of them won’t immediately begin troubling the upper rungs of the most-watched charts, because effects-heavy blockbusters are often irresistible to subscribers everywhere.
Thanks to their status the most recent releases, the three colossal flops of 2023 and Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam aren’t part of the collection gearing up to fly onto the Netflix library along with the likes of Shazam! and Aquaman, but Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984, and The Suicide Squad is still a decent enough selection.
The timing is curious, but Netflix is happy to bolster its roster with some polarizing comic book content nonetheless.