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This weekend saw the second film of the DCU, the highly-anticipated Supergirl movie, officially arrive in theaters, and like many other attempts at expanding a new cinematic universe, it didn’t exactly soar. With a mixed 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Milly Alcock-starring film debuted to a worldwide total of $68 million at the global box office, with its $38 million gross in the US a third the size of Superman‘s last summer (and $1 million less than the Jared Leto-starring Morbius). As one might expect, negativity like this has led to a lot of chatter and discourse online about the future of the nascent DCU.
To be fair, the bosses at DC Studios have also been frank about the reception of the movie and how it’s just one piece of their larger plans for this cinematic universe. DC Studios co-president Peter Safran told the New York Times that even though “Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations,” they remain confident in their larger strategy. A new report from TheWrap reveals what the studio might be thinking about next, and it could see the return of major DC Villains to the big screen, with that long-fabled Bane & Deathstroke movie.
DC’s Bane/Deathstroke Movie Reportedly a Priority
According to TheWrap‘s big report today, the fallout of Supergirl‘s failure and the fact that the DCU doesn’t have any clear major projects arriving after next year’s Man of Tomorrow have left the series in a weird place. To that end, the Bane & Deathstroke movie that has been spoken about for some time is now reportedly a priority for the studio. That said, there’s no filmmaker attached to the project, nor have any actors been cast in the roles of these two antagonists.
It does beg the question, though, if DC Studios is actually reeling from the mistakes of Supergirl, specifically spending a lot of money on a character that isn’t exactly A-list and featuring an actor who’s not a household name, why would a film about two Batman villains be the next move? Granted, the film itself may actually be a little more nuanced than just a movie about two antagonists; frankly, these two characters’ being involved is the only thing we even know about it, since official updates have been sporadic.
When James Gunn rolled out his pitch for the DCU back in January of 2023, it included a slew of movie titles and TV shows that would make up the first phase of the franchise, which was dubbed “Gods and Monsters.” To date, some of those projects have actually been released or will be soon, like Superman, Supergirl, and Lanterns. Others, like The Authority, The Brave and the Bold, and a Themyscira-set series, Paradise Lost, are stuck in varying levels of development, or, like The Authority, appear to have been scrapped altogether.
All that is to say, reports and rumors of this Bane & Deathstroke movie at DC Studios have been consistent for some time, even as James Gunn himself has never actually spoken about the project at length. Gunn previously confirmed a screenwriter was working on a script for the studio and noted it was “something kind of like” a Deathstroke/Bane story, with the last update on the project being that director Greg Mottola was reportedly a frontrunner to direct the film.
To that end, though, mainstream audiences know of Bane from two different movies: 1997’s Batman & Robin, where he was a caricature, and 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, with Tom Hardy doing one of his trademark voices. Deathstroke, on the other hand, has only appeared in a post-credit scene for the theatrical cut of Justice League. Though comic book readers are well aware of who these two villains are and what they’re capable of, for regular movie theater attendees, they may as well be on the same level as Supergirl herself.
All that makes this film being a priority a surprise, that is, assuming there’s no other kind of twist surrounding the film, such as the presence of Batman or maybe even the entire Justice League. It also has to make fans who have been paying attention to the big picture moves of the DCU question “the plan,” as Gunn has clearly been setting the stage for a live-action adaptation of Salvation Run across the films and shows. Where does a Bane & Deathstroke movie fit into that…if at all?
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