Hollywood is witnessing a battle of Multiverse. Why DC and Marvel Studios are in the eye of the storm?
Back in 2016 Zack Snyder’s Batman Vs Superman: The Dawn of Justice paved the way for Captain America: Civil War. Before Snyder’s attempt, pitting two superheroes against each other was an unusual concept. Civil War director Anthony and Joe Russo admitted to THR there was an immense need to shake up the content with the audience’s changing preference. Following WB’s BvS announcement Marvel head Kevin Feige greenlit the project.
While DC’s Batman Vs Superman opened to a mixed review, it launched the DC Extended Universe. On the other hand, released a couple of months later MCU’s Civil War opened to rave reviews and created a universal #TeamCap vs #TeamIronMan debate. What happened in the following years with both the franchises is the stuff of Hollywood legends and today it has turned into a battle of cinematic Multiverse.
DC’s Multiverse
Fast forward to 2020, much has been going around about MCU’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – rumoured cameos, the prospect of alternate dimensions and various versions of our beloved superheroes and more. All elements come together to create a huge box-office success for the Marvel Studio and a superhero fest for the audience.
Apropos DC has jumped the Multiverse bandwagon as well. WB has announced too many things too soon. While fans are feeling a superhero fatigue, the studios are working full throttle to lay the groundwork for the Multiverse. Marvel announced the Multiverse in 2019 San Diego Comic Con. And DC followed it up with unprecedented DC FanDome event. DC laid out simple rule for its Multiverse – all the characters exist at the same time just on different Earths.
Watch: DC’s Flash Movie Will Create A New DC Multiverse | Screen Rant
Based on the rule it is now casting characters from different corners of its universe for The Flash 2022 movie. The movie is based on the Flashpoint event and actor Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck both are reprising their role as Batman. Also, there are rumours about Wonder Woman actor Gal Gadot is in talks with WB for reprising her role as well as Cyborg actor Ray Fisher.
In an ideal world Zack Snyder would have given a glimpse of Flash’s quantum capabilities starting his theatrical cut of Justice League. However as fate decree fans will now have a glimpse of it in his upcoming Snyder Cut on HBO Max. Nonetheless, director Andrés Muschietti will take Ezra Miller’s Flash into the Multiverse.
Kevin Feige’s Multiverse Plans
Whilst DC looks strong with its Multiverse action in place Marvel is not left far behind. COO Kevin Feige announced the host of new characters during SDCC Comic-Con 2019. In MCU Sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange will take the audience into the Multiverse with the sequel movie.
But before that Scarlett Witch will give fans a taste of mystical reality wrapping corners of the MCU in the Disney+ WandaVision series. The Disney+ series trailer garnered more 50 million views in first 24 hours of its release. To set a contrast, the DC FanDome event drew 22 million views in the same time frame. While fans are certainly excited for the MCU content after the long draught one can only imagine what happens when it actually releases later this year.
The WandaVision series will directly tie into Doctor Strange sequel towards the end of Phase 4.
Watch: The MCU Multiverse Finally Explained | Looper
While there’s little officially known about the rules of MCU Multiverse the characters in WandaVision and Doctor Strange certainly tilt towards multiple iterations of the same character. There are strong rumours about Marvel Studios’ executives contemplating big names like Tom Cruise for an alternate timeline version of Iron Man, similarly,
Emily Blunt is being considered for playing Black Widow and Joaquin Phoenix can very well be Doctor Strange.
It looks like, Marvel is trying to bring in the actors who ‘could have been’ MCU heroes. Tom Cruise was initially interested in producing an Iron Man movie. Emily Blunt was Marvel Studios’ first choice to play Black Widow, same goes for Joaquin Phoenix who went through the negotiations with the Studio but casting never materialized.
If indeed true it would be super cool to see all the ‘could have been’ Avengers along with the current Avengers on big screen. And well Marvel is quite popular for its fan service!
Casting decisions also serves the purpose of recasting several characters like Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow without hurting the original MCU timeline or the character arcs.
The mightiest advantage the Marvel Studios has over WB is the release schedule. While WandVision will give a taste of Multiple realities to the audience this year Doctor Strange will introduce the audience to it in March 2022. More so fans have Marvel-Sony’s Multiverse to look at which is developing a Spider-verse by crossing over various characters from both movie-verses. The Flash is now delayed to November 2022, so fans will have known and gone forward with MCU Multiverse while DC only begins.
Despite the fact that it’s not a race fans will have expectations and a benchmark for DC’s multiverse to meet.
