The Best Way To Watch The DC Extended Universe

​Welcome to Fan Service, a guide to engaging with gargantuan, lore-heavy franchises. In each volume, we'll recommend a watch/read order to approach the given series with and dissect our argument for it. Today: The DC Extended Universe in film and television.

Note: This article's watch order has been updated for the release of "Aquaman" and "Shazam!" — otherwise, the article reflects the state of DC's films as of late 2017.

If you told a comic book fan in the year 2000 to guess which character would launch the first crossover-heavy comic book movie franchise, they'd probably never guess "Iron Man." They'd probably guess another billionaire bad boy, Batman.

The house that Bruce Wayne built has been playing catchup for the last few years, transitioning out of an era of individual franchises and into the cinematic universe mold pioneered by Marvel. It's been rocky along the way — "Wonder Woman" did well this past summer, but "Suicide Squad" and "Batman V Superman" have taken critical beatings.

Do you know where the DC Extended Universe¹ even begins and ends? "Superman Returns" doesn't count and neither do Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. Things might have gotten confusing with Marvel when they rebooted Spider-Man again for the MCU, but DC basically did that twice with their two biggest heroes. On top of that, there's a whole slew of DC hero television shows, none of which are tied to the movies. Some of these shows exist in the same universe, one exists in another universe that's still crossed over to the other (yes, really) and still another has nothing to do with the rest. If you're confused by where DC's at these days, you're not alone.

Let us do you a Fan Service by explaining how we got around to having a DC Extended Universe and why it's so cloistered. We'll also check in with DC's television properties and and sort out who's playing which iconic character where. Let's dig in.

The Order Of Certitude

As it stands, there are only five movies in the DC Extended Universe, making this the simplest Fan Service watch order yet. "Man of Steel," "Batman V Superman" and "Justice League" all essentially serve as a trilogy. "Suicide Squad" is a total spin-off (ok, Batman is in it for like, two scenes) and "Wonder Woman" is primarily a flashback to the first World War.

With the future of the franchise riding on these early installments, each has been extensively focus tested and tweaked.² With the possible exception of "Wonder Woman," each of these movies clearly try to respond to and improve upon the ones before them. To get the most out of these movies, you might as well watch them in the order they came out:

• Man of Steel (2013)
  
• Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
  
• Suicide Squad (2016)
  
• Wonder Woman (2017)
  
• Justice League (2017)
• Aquaman (2018)
• Shazam! (2019)

You could accuse DC of jumping the gun a bit by doing "Justice League" so quickly. When Marvel made "The Avengers," all four marquee heroes had at least one solo movie under their belts, and no main character had to be introduced in movie itself (remember, they manage to squeeze poor, neglected Hawkeye into "Thor"). "Justice League" has to jam in The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg in with little to no setup. That means less homework for you, the viewer, but you'll be left waiting for a proper introduction to those folks until their solo films hit theaters a few years from now.

Why The Reboot?

Comic book superhero movies since 2000 can be split into two eras: there's the era of the individual or ensemble blockbusters kicked off by the first "X-Men," and then comes the cinematic universe era birthed by the success of "The Avengers" in 2011. The wave of movies led by Fox's "X-Men" and Sony's Sam Raimi-directed "Spider-Man" films were, in their own ways, responses to the Warner Bros. "Batman" series.³ Instead of embracing all-out camp like "Batman" had, "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" pushed for things to be just a little more serious. Meanwhile, while Fox and Sony raked in the money on Marvel properties, Warner Brothers was trying to figure out how to best proceed with the big DC heroes in their stable: Batman and Superman.

Warner Bros. hadn't made a "Superman" film since the Christopher Reeves-led franchise sputtered out in the '80s. Famously, Kevin Smith was hired to write a script for "Superman Lives" in the '90s. That script moved far along the production process — Nicolas Cage was set to star as Superman/Clark Kent and Tim Burton was attached to direct. Ultimately, those plans collapsed during pre-production. A few years later, a script by J.J. Abrams got to a similar point in production. They had even picked their Lex Luthor: Robert Downey Jr.⁴ It crumbled just like "Superman Lives" did.

The Superman movie that did get made was 2006's "Superman Returns." Directed by Bryan Singer, who arguably revitalized the superhero movie with "X-Men," "Superman Returns" was, bizarrely, a nostalgic movie instead of a step forward for the character. Envisioned as a spiritual sequel to "Superman II," it ignored the later two films in the Christopher Reeves series. That's why "Superman Returns" was one of the earliest movies that went out of its way to digitally recreate a deceased actor, repurposing and tweaking old footage of Marlon Brando as Superman's dad Jor-El. After scrapping a movie that could've given us a Kryptonian Nic Cage and another with a script from the man who'd admirably reboot both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars," Warner went with a nostalgia play that failed to live up to their box-office expectations.⁵

Of course, Warner's choices with "Batman" played out much better. While the "X-Men" movies cracked jokes about how silly spandex costumes looked, Christopher Nolan took Batman and made it, you know, actually serious. Nolan had a great deal of creative control over his trilogy — it's hard to imagine anyone accusing "The Dark Knight" of suffering from typical comic book movie sins like too much focus testing, overdoing it with nostalgia or relying too much on CGI.⁶ When Zack Snyder was later brought in to spearhead DC's cinematic universe, the more grounded nature of Nolan's films were cited as why they wouldn't be carried forward into the cinematic universe's canon. In Snyder's own words, "in the Batman universe that Chris Nolan created, Superman would have hard time existing."

The other DC films of the era didn't warrant being rolled into the cinematic universe's canon either. "Catwoman" was only loosely based on the actual character from the "Batman" comics, and Ryan Reynolds' turn as the Green Lantern in 2011 was so widely panned that it'll be best remembered as fodder for jokes in "Deadpool." Even if you love the Nolan movies and aren't too hot on the DCEU thus far, it's a good thing Warner and DC entered the cinematic universe game with a totally clean live-action slate… with the exception of "Arrow."

What's Up With All The TV Shows?

A year before "Man of Steel" hit theaters and before Marvel kicked off the TV arm of its extended universe with "Agents of SHIELD," The CW premiered "Arrow." Green Arrow had joined the cast of The CW's "Smallville" in the show's later seasons, but once "Smallville" wrapped, the network moved ahead with "Arrow" as a fresh reboot of the character instead of a spinoff. The show's creators — Andrew Kreisberg, Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim — developed "Arrow" as its own property, but it wasn't long before The CW announced that the same trio would work on a television version of "The Flash." It was established from the get-go that "Arrow" and "The Flash" occupy the same canonical universe (now referred to as the "Arrowverse") and that the two shows would crossover from time to time. At the time of that announcement, all the speculation about a "Flash" project had assumed it would be a movie to pair with "Man of Steel." This Forbes article on the announcement went a step further and wondered whether the TV versions of Green Arrow and The Flash would end up on the big screen in "Justice League." Since Warner Bros. was playing things close to the chest at the time, speculation over a TV/movie crossover continued to percolate.

While the creative gears turned at Warner Bros. during the long gap between "Man of Steel" and "Batman V Superman," the shows on The CW chugged along. Other networks got in on DC properties as well: In 2014 Fox premiered "Gotham," a show focused on a young not-yet-Commissioner Gordon, and Berlanti and Kreisberg debuted their take on "Supergirl" at CBS a year after that. "Gotham" was off in its own world as a police-focused Batman prequel, but the shared creatives between "Supergirl," "Arrow" and "The Flash" raised fans' hopes for a potential crossover. Even though a CBS exec sounded reluctant, they didn't even wait a whole season of "Supergirl" before squeezing in a crossover with "The Flash" — it's explained that Flash crosses over into Supergirl's universe, so it's a little more complicated than the two shows just sharing the same reality. "Supergirl" moved to The CW for its second season, making the real-world logistics of crossover episodes easier, but the two fictional universes remain separated.

Now the Arrowverse has three shows⁷ plus occasional crossovers with "Supergirl,"⁸ but the shows have their own versions of big-name DC characters including Superman. It seems like the Arrowverse is never going to connect up with the DC Extended Universe, and as it stands, there are no plans to launch new television shows that link up to the movies. This means it's a lot easier to follow what's going on in the DCEU or the Arrowverse than it is to pick out which Marvel TV shows actually link up to the movies (but hey, we've got you covered there).

So Wait, Who's Superman Now, Who's The Flash?

Let's go through the iterations of a few key DC characters to establish who's currently in the role on TV and who's playing it on the big screen:

Superman/Clark Kent

Henry Cavill's been Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman since 2013's "Man of Steel" — had J.J. Abrams' early '00s script gone into production, there's a chance Cavill could've become the Kryptonian back then, but alas. When "Supergirl" introduced Tyler Hoechlin (Derek on "Teen Wolf") as its version of Superman in the show's second season, it put to bed any ideas of the show crossing over with the DCEU any time soon.

The Flash/Barry Allen

Fans of "The Flash" on The CW were a upset when it was announced that Ezra Miller ("We Need To Talk About Kevin") would take on the role of Barry Allen/The Flash in "Justice League" instead of the show's lead, Grant Gustin. Zack Snyder went on the record to say that casting Gustin was never even considered, which seems a little harsh. Still, Miller is being praised as one of the best parts of "Justice League," so it seems like starting fresh was a good call.

Batman/Bruce Wayne

This one's not really confusing, but who's really going to pass up a chance to get a few digs in at Batfleck? A lot of people questioned casting Affleck as Wayne when it was announced, and the press tour for "Batman V Superman" spawned a meme that suggested Affleck really, really didn't want to have anything to do with the film. Though Affleck acknowledged the joke and spoke positively of "Batman V Superman" afterwards, but the rumors keep swirling about Affleck pulling a Michael Keaton. If Affleck does hang up the cape, it'd be several years before his young counterpart on "Gotham" David Mazouz could take the role.

As a side note: Mazouz, 16, isn't the main character of "Gotham" — that honor goes to Ben McKenzie (Ryan from "The O.C."), who plays Jim Gordon. J.K. Simmons plays Gordon in the DCEU, further establishing that if he's gonna play someone in a superhero movie, their name is also gonna begin with "J."

The Future

Regardless of whether Batfleck steps down or the next DCEU movie underperforms, we're surely going to keep getting DC movies for a while. A pessimist might say that these films are too big to fail, but "Wonder Woman" alone serves as proof that DC isn't totally locked into making a long string of overdramatic, gritty movies. Jason Momoa's "Aquaman" movie coming next year should be at least as entertaining as clips of him chucking tomahawks at things, and before these movies Aquaman was routinely spoofed as the guy who just talks to fish. DC also has "Shazam," "Cyborg," "Flashpoint," a "Wonder Woman" sequel and a Green Lantern film on the way over the next couple years. There's a real opportunity for the DC movies to establish a universe that's varied and fun — and they could certainly take notes from the variety on display in their own television offerings without having to connect their canons.

Here's hoping that DC has more hits in its future… and that those hits don't involve Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Sorry-not-sorry, "Suicide Squad."