by 
Updated on December 10, 2021
Last week, DC and Warner Bros. announced its planned slate of live-action film projects through the end of the decade. Among the most surprising news: Wonder Woman’s finally getting a stand-alone movie! The only downside is that they also made clear that this version of Diana will be based on the not-kid-friendly New 52 version, complete with the awful non-feminist “Zeus is my father” origin. (Sigh.) Warner/DC does know that despite their comics’ very narrow, limited target audience and/or wishful thinking, there’ll be tons of kids going to see all of these films, yes?
The full film slate and schedule (from The Mary Sue) is as follows:
- “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016)
- “Suicide Squad” (2016)
- “Wonder Woman” (2017)
- “Justice League Part One” (2017)
- “The Flash” (2018)
- “Aquaman” (2018)
- “Shazam” (2019)
- “Justice League Part Two” (2019)
- “Cyborg” (2020)
- “Green Lantern” (2020)
Not only is it a very ambitious schedule (10 films in the next six years?), but it also makes an attempt at diversity: a female-led film (I know, but one more than what Marvel has as of this writing); a film starring a Black man (Cyborg); a film starring an LGBT actor (Flash; the actor cast as Flash, Ezra Miller, self-identifies as “queer”); and a film starring an actor of Hawaiian descent (Jason Momoa, who’s playing Aquaman). There’s no word on who’ll be cast as Green Lantern, or which GL it’ll be, though it’ll probably Hal Jordan, much as people would like John Stewart.
While I’m still very wary of and less-than-excited about these films’ possible quality, since they’re likely following in the steps of “Man of Steel”/the New 52 (Zack Snyder’s still involved with the JLA films and “Batman V Superman”), I’m glad that Warner Bros. is going for diverse casting.
Elsewhere, Warner’s also announced a new digital production division, Blue Ribbon Content, which’ll produce content for various online/digital platforms. The biggest news is that they’ll be producing a new, live-action “Static Shock” series. Static, of course, originated in the Milestone line of comics in the 90s, before getting a popular animated series (and the “Static Shock” name) in the 2000s. (Said series still not on home video beyond a long-out-of-print single-disc DVD, by the way…) News about who’ll play Static, and other details, still remain to be worked out.
Warner Bros. used the name “Blue Ribbon” during the 1940s, 50s and 60s for the name of its series of re-released Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts. DC Comics also used the name for its short-lived line of Archie digest-sized comic reprints (“Blue Ribbon Digests”) in the late 70s and 80s.
