Should Snyder & Goyer do World's Finest before Justice League?

The latest rumors about Man of Steel 2 have Mark Strong (Green Lantern's Sinestro) being pursued by Snyder for the role of Lex Luthor in Man of Steel 2 and the movie being fast-tracked for a 2014 release. Additionally, Warner is still expecting a Justice League film out for summer 2015 and is apparently planning an Aquaman feature. With Green Lantern 2 also still planned this presents issues, can Ryan Reynolds appear in Justice League and Mark Strong pull double duty as Sinestro and Luthor? My feelings on Mark Strong as Lex are apparent here.

As far as the Super Friends go, I believe establishing more characters with origin stories is pertinent to the success of the DC Cinematic Universe if Warner wants to have anything comparable to what Marvel has accomplished with Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain American leading to the major box office success of The Avengers. That film was not tossed together on a whim after one successful film like warner wants to do with Justice League. It was planned and mapped out and placed in the hands of creative teams that fans would stand behind.

Before Marvel's Avengers was released, Marvel established origins for four separate heroes in separate films spanning several years of release. This stretegy paid off for Marvel, Paramount, and later Disney / Buena Vista, as it built anticipation for future films in the series by including easter eggs in each film that lead to other films or heroes in the series.

Warner/DC should follow this trajectory to the Justice League film, planning phases culminating with team-up films like Marvel did. Heroes like The Flash and Aquaman may be well known to fans of the industry, but they are relatively unknown characters to the rest of the moviegoing public Warner is targeting. It is for all these reasons that doing Justice League so soon and so quickly after Man of Steel 2 is a bad idea. More solo films need to come first.

Let's look at the two movies done so far and my proposed order of films leading to Justice League and how they could work, what they provide for the other films and how they may lead to each other.

In 2011, Green Lantern did a very good job of establishing the scope of the DC Cinematic Universe. Although a critical and financial failure, the inherent nature of the Lantern Corps increases the viability of the franchise and there is no need for a reboot, just introduce Guy Gardner or John Stewart. I would prefer John Stewart. At this point we are on par with Hulk. I mean seriously, which movie did you like better? Hulk or Lantern?

With Man of Steel, which broke the June box office record, Snyder and Goyer have a less cheesy take on Superman than ever before, more closely resembling Nolan's darker take on Bruce Wayne for the Dark Knight trilogy, although Nolan's Batman is not a part of the DCCU. There are many easter eggs in Superman's latest box office smash; the LexCorp logos, the Wayne Industries satellite dish, the whales swimming by when superman is underwater in the oil rig scene, the mention of Ferris Air, among others. Now we stand on equal ground or maybe even better than Iron Man, considering Kal-El is outperforming Tony Stark's origin story in box office numbers alone. At this point DC should follow Marvel's successful trajectory very closely.



DC is now on the right track if you look at the LexCorp logos in Man of Steel, which would set us up well for the inevitable battle between Superman and Lex Luthor, which many expect to be the focus of the sequel, and Warner is fast-tracking it for 2014, and some speculate it will be titled "Man of Tomorrow".

What kind of tech did Luthor obtain during the excavation of fallen buildings and repair of Metropolis? How did the world react to the damage caused in Metropolis and reveal of Superman and the Kryptonians and their demise? These questions should all be addressed in Man of Steel 2. Another easter egg was the Wayne Industries logo, which would be the perfect set up for a scene where Bruce Wayne is investigating Superman's origin and powers. In this film Superman and Luthor should both become aware of Batman's existence and possibly other heroes. If Warners can outshine Iron Man 2's revenue with this film, which shouldn't be hard to do, that would cement the foundation for the DCCU.

This setup leads directly into what should be the fourth film in the DC Cinematic Universe, World's Finest, taking place after the events of Man of Steel 2. With Batman already weary of Superman's abilities and intentions after the events of MOS 1 and 2 , he could mistake Superman as an enemy of humanity and earth, until ultimately realizing that an they share the same goals, and they team up to take care of Luthor and other future threats to Earth.

A World's Finest movie should be made before Justice league for many, many reasons. It would work better not only to introduce Batman before Justice League, but also not to reboot him again, as everyone knows the story of the caped crusader's origin. Now we just want to see him kick some ass with Superman.

In this film we could catch a glimpse of other DC heroes activity, there are countless ways it could be done. Perhaps with Batman attempting to monitor Superman's activities, he has gathered evidence of other heroes on his computer, including Green Lantern's exploits from the first film which the government covered up, and/or reports of sightings of Wonder Woman and The Flash. It could also be said that Luthor unearthed the evidence of other heroes or Superman located them with his super-hearing. This would set the stage not only for Justice League, but also for Green Lantern 2 and origin stories for Wonder Woman and The Flash. This is like a pre-Justice League, an extra film in the series compared to Marvel, and with the anticipation for a Superman vs. Batman film and Justice League, this movie would absolutely kill at the cinema, along with establishing yet another tentpole for warner.

What do you think? let me know in the comments.