AT&T Killed the DCEU Movie Universe, Is the DCU Streaming Service Next?

DC Comics really can’t catch a break. They wanted to build a big cinematic universe like the one Marvel did with The Avengers, but it didn’t work out so well. They had a few hits but when you can’t make Batman and Superman, the two most iconic comic book characters with the strongest archetypes, work as a movie, you’re gonna have a bad time. Warner just gave up on the whole idea and decided to focus on making good movies, which is a novel idea.

TV-wise, however, thing have been going well for DC. They have six DC shows on the CW next season, including the new Batwoman, the final season of Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow, the best of the bunch. They’ve also had the much better than the trailer indicated Teen Titans and the critical darling Doom Patrol on the DC Universe boutique streaming service.

You’d think things would be great, because the first episode of their new DCU show Swamp Thing just debuted to mostly positive reviews as well. But then Swamp Thing was suddenly cancelled after one episode. Why on earth did that happen if the show is good?

It happened because of an accounting error. CBR reported that the show was not only cancelled but also cut to ten episodes from 13 because the production was expecting a $40 million tax refund from North Carolina and it only got $14 million.

If that wasn’t bad enough news, there are whispers that the DCU service itself might be on the chopping block.

The reason is that it isn’t doing super well and AT&T, the new owners of Warner Brothers, want to have a big streaming service like Disney is launching. Warner had been running little niche services like DCU but now AT&T wants to make a big play, and the Wall Street Journal says they’re going to roll all of their other services into one that costs around $16 a month. What everything means is HBO and Cinemax in addition to all their little niche services and their entire film and television catalogue. It’s a lot of stuff.

So if all of this is true, DCUniverse will be going away but all its content will be available alongside a huge amount of other content. Except for Swamp Thing. Although there are rumors HBO and The CW are both looking at picking that up, too, and they’re both owned by AT&T as well. SO this whole thing could end up being  a wash.