Warning: This article contains spoilers for Black Adam.The DCEU has been in a state of course correction for five years, but after Black Adam, is the biggest mistake Warner Bros. hasn’t fixed yet, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg. While many mistakes were made in the early days of the DCEU and the universe was in a state of disarray after the fallout of Justice League‘s reshoots, Warner Bros. is slowly putting the pieces back together, but still has a long way to go.
Zack Snyder replaced by Joss Whedon as director of Justice League and carrying out massive rewrites and reshoots caused massive damage to the brand and derailed years of planning. One of the biggest stories to emerge from the reshoots was Ray Fisher’s allegations of abuse, racism and toxicity towards the cast during reshoots by Joss Whedon, DC Films co-chairs Geoff Johns and John Berg, and their replacement, Walter. Hamada, who wasn’t even president of DC Films when the shooting took place, but Fisher says he was trying to thwart an investigation into the allegations. With Hamada’s recent departure, any person accusing Fisher by name has left the studio, potentially opening the door to mending their relationship with Fisher and returning Cyborg to the DCEU.
The Justice League Debacle Has Derailed The Entire DCEU
Justice League became the laughingstock of the DCEU upon release thanks to its cringing dialogue, corny jokes, bad character and bad CGI, including an embarrassing CGI mustache removal on Superman’s (Henry Cavill) face. The film’s intent was to steer away from Zack Snyder’s controversial approach to the DC universe, but instead it virtually halted development of the franchise. Zack Snyder’s original DCEU roadmap was abandoned, Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck both seemed done with their roles as Superman and Batman, and Ray Fisher said he wouldn’t be playing Cyborg in a movie produced by Walter Hamada.
After failing to offer a more compelling alternative to the franchise, Warner Bros. finally released Zack Snyder’s Justice League. While the studio claimed it marked the end of Zack Snyder’s time with DC, it released Zack Snyder’s Justice League a grave injustice as Snyder’s film was clearly superior and he had been muscled out of his role as director in the wake of a family tragedy. While a sequel to Zack Snyder’s Justice League isn’t currently in the cards, the release of the Snyder Cut has fixed the DCEU’s biggest flaw.
Black Adam re-directs the DCEU
It might not be the five-part Superman and Justice League arc charted by Zack Snyder, but the DCEU is finally building something up again. In the wake of Justice League By 2017, the DCEU had left Darkseid and the Knightmare and all the interesting future plagues set up in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Man of Steelbut none of the new DC movies offered any kind of replacement. Justice LeagueThe reshoots added a plague for the Legion of Doom or Injustice League to then take on the Justice League, but none of the subsequent films did anything to achieve that goal.
The DCEU still has a long way to go in this regard, but Black Adam is giving the universe a new direction, especially with Henry Cavill’s appearance as Superman in the post-credits scene. It might not be as big a plague as Snyder’s Knightmare future or Darkseid, but Superman back in the DCEU back in the DCEU is a big deal. Instead of treading water, the DCEU may finally be moving forward, and another Justice League movie with the original cast could even be in the cards.
The DCEU finally has its biggest actors back
Superman’s story lay dead in the water after Whedon’s Justice League. As Snyder pursued him in an arc laid out across multiple films, Whedon quickly sorted out all the plots involving Superman, accelerating his character growth so quickly that there was no obvious place to take the next character. Besides his cheesy writing and slightly terrifying CGI face, it looked like Cavill was ready to play the character. While there was still strong demand from fans to return, Walter Hamada turned out to be actively blocking his return to the franchise, and it cost Dwayne Johnson over his head to Warner Bros. Pictures heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy (and Hamada’s departure) to get Cavill back for his Black Adam cameo.
Meanwhile, Ben Affleck also had a hard time Justice League, which caused him to walk away from directing his own Batman movie and leave the role altogether. Despite turning down the role in multiple interviews, Affleck took part in some additional photography for Zack Snyder’s Justice League and eventually agreed to come back and play Batman for The flash, and now also appears in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. It’s not clear how Affleck is invested in the franchise this time around, but the fact that DCEU’s original Batman and Superman actors are one of the biggest impacts of Whedon’s Justice League.
Ray Fisher is the biggest mistake WB hasn’t fixed yet
Despite the universe getting back on track and bringing Affleck and Cavill back, the DCEU will still have the looming shadow of the situation behind the scenes. Justice League until Ray Fisher returns to the role of Cyborg. Thankfully, all of Fisher’s accused execs are now gone, so there shouldn’t be any residual tension between Fisher and the studio.
It would be an obviously smart gesture to give Fisher an olive branch to bring him back to Cyborg. Not only would it get the character back on screen and undo an injustice, but it would also send a strong signal at a time when Warner Bros. Discovery could take advantage of the PR that undoes past wrongs.
While the DCEU has felt largely aimless since 2017, the release of the Snyder Cut, the return of Ben Affleck’s Batman, and now the return of Henry Cavill’s Superman in Black Adam finally fix many of the things that had gone wrong in the franchise. At this point, Ray Fisher repaired bridges to bring him back, as Cyborg would eventually undo most of the damage done to the DCEU by previous Warner Bros. administrations.
