One of the biggest criticisms about how Warner Bros. was handling its DC properties was that there wasn’t one person overseeing it all. It was a large group of people, too many cooks in the kitchen, and that diluted the overall vision. There was no equivalent of Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige. Well, DC Films has finally changed that. It’s found some Kevin Feiges.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Warner Bros. executive Jon Berg and DC’s Chief Content Officer Geoff Johns will soon start co-running DC Films. They will produce the movies and generally manage the cohesive vision, while also giving filmmakers plenty of room to make their own movies. Berg was already working the films that have been released and are in production. Johns, too, has been assisting on those movies, in addition to helping the DC properties on the television and comic sides.
This is just the latest major shake-up after Batman v Superman failed to meet Warner Bros.’ significant expectations. It’s going to be a profitable film, but not an undeniable smash; more crucially, it didn’t generate the kind of groundswell of excitement the studio hoped for. That got executives thinking and major changes began. First Suicide Squad, the next film on the slate, underwent significant reshoots. Then director Seth Grahame-Smith left The Flash. Ben Affleck was given more creative control on Justice League and, now, there’s this change at the top. All of it is in the hopes Warner Bros. can make this set of films something it can count on to be massive critical and financial successes.
You can read more about the change over at The Hollywood Reporter, but this is likely good news for comic book movie fans in general and DC fans in particular.