The sky just got a lot more crowded. At a shareholder meeting earlier today, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara announced an ambitious plan to release two superhero blockbusters every year from 2016 until 2020. Here's a brief summary of their grand scheme to challenge Marvel's cinematic universe at the box office:
2016
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2017
Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot
Justice League, directed by Zack Snyder
2018
The Flash, starring Ezra Miller
Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa
2019
Shazam, starring Dwayne Johnson (as Black Adam, not Shazam)
Justice League 2, directed by Zack Snyder
2020
Cyborg, starring Ray Fisher
Green Lantern
Slashfilm adds that the company also plans to produce additional standalone films based on Batman and Superman, though they didn't appear on an official calendar.
That's a staggering amount of information to process, but there are a few highlights worth noting.
One: Justice League comes before most of the standalone superhero movies, in a kind of reversal of Marvel's plan for The Avengers: introduce all the heroes at once in a mash-up movie before spinning them off into their own franchises.
Two: Many of the actors listed above were already attached to their superheroic roles — but The Flash's Ezra Miller, best known for indie dramas like We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is a brand-new announcement.
Three: The conspicuous absence of Ryan Reynolds's name on Green Lantern (and his purported attachment to the rival superhero movie Deadpool) seems like pretty clear evidence that Warner Bros. will just pretend 2011's Green Lantern never happened. Good advice for all of us.
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