The Future of the DC Cinematic Universe Will Be A Multiverse, Including Competing Parallel Versions of Batman

Holy Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman.

The vision of the future of the DC Cinematic Universe has been in flux since 2016’s dismal critical and financial failure: Justice League. But a recent interview in the New York Times with newly installed DC Films head Walter Hamada laid out an intricate plan that includes simultaneous Batman stories, and the creation of a DC multiverse.

In other words, a lot like the DC Comics universe that’s always existed in print.

The studio will begin dipping its toes into parallel universes and timelines going forward. The conceit of a multiverse was a major constant in DC Comics beginning with the seminal Flash of Two Worlds  story in The Flash  #123 published in September of 1961, where the modern day Barry Allen met Jay Garrick, the Flash of the 1940s.

Written by Gardner Fox, the story was hugely popular and inaugurated semi-annual company wide cross over events featuring The Justice League of America and their golden age predecessors The Justice Society of America. Years of cross and sometimes contradictory story lines culminated in its cri de coeur 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths which eliminated the concept entirely.

And then Crisis became the semi annual tag of every future big annual DC crossover event itself. The CW did a hugely successful  version featuring their line of DCU inspired shows last December.

After experimenting with more standalone stories like Joker, DC/Warner Bros. will  now, like the comics, have multiple universes running concurrently, with Wonder Woman existing Earth 1, while Pattinson’s take on Batman will belong to Earth 2. That Batman will not belong to the DCEU, which will have its own Batman saga running concurrently.

“To make all the story lines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously,” the Times writes, pointing to the studio’s “two different film sagas” involving Batman. The Flash is the film that is expected to set the DCEU Batman franchise in motion, with both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton set to don the cape and cowl for that 2022 release.

“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,” Hamada said. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”