The Arrowverse Justice League deserves a DC Elseworlds movie to conclude the shared DC TV universe. The currently airing The Flash season 9 will not only be the final season for Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen but will also serve as the Arrowverse’s swan song. Once a massive universe with several different series, the Arrowverse has recently seen the cancelation of multiple shows. The only series that resisted the wave of cancelations was The Flash, which concludes with season 9, and Superman & Lois, which was retconned to take place outside the Arrowverse.
The Arrowverse ending with The Flash season 9 and the cancelation of several shows make it impossible for there to be another crossover event that would finally see the debut of the Arrowverse’s Justice League. The Arrowverse’s biggest crossover event, “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” saw the creation of the Justice League at its end, teasing future adventures for the team. With the Arrowverse shows soon concluding, an Arrowverse Justice League movie being released as part of DC’s new Elseworlds brand should become a reality, as it would allow audiences to experience the Arrowverse like never before through the emotional payoff of seeing its Justice League in the big screen.
5 James Gunn Announced DC’s New Elseworlds Label
The old DCEU is giving way to a new era for the comic book giant, with DC Studios being helmed by James Gunn and Peter Safran. In a video announcement of the first few projects in the new DC Universe, Gunn revealed that DC is creating an Elseworlds brand. DC’s Elseworlds will allow movies and TV shows to exist outside the main DC Universe continuity, with shared universes such as Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which has a spinoff Penguin series and a sequel movie announced, being fair game. The Batman‘s Elseworlds status opens the door for an Arrowverse Justice League movie, with both being able to co-exist with Gunn’s DC.
4 The Flash Season 10 Had Plans For A Huge Justice League Event
While The Flash season 9 will be the series’ last, that was not always going to be the case. The speedster series’ showrunner, Eric Wallace, revealed that The Flash season 10 would have featured the Arrowverse’s Justice League. According to the showrunner, the series would have paid off the Arrowverse’s Justice League tease at the end of the Crisis on Infinite Earths event in a big way, with DC’s premiere superhero team coming together for an even bigger Arrowverse crossover event. A smaller-scale Arrowverse crossover, “Armageddon,” happened over five episodes of The Flash season 8, and it would have factored into the proper debut of the Arrowverse’s Justice League.
Armageddon’s plot revolved around Tony Curran’s Despero trying to kill The Flash due to the hero being responsible for creating an Armageddon ten years in the future, which would destroy Earth. At the end of the crossover event, The Flash beat Despero, who disappeared, saying that he would come back to get revenge on the speedster. The Flash season 10 would have continued that plot line, bringing back Despero, who would lead an alien invasion on Earth. The Arrowverse’s Justice League would have come together to fight off the invasion, which could be turned into the plot of an Elseworlds movie. A Blackest Night adaptation was also discussed.
3 The Arrowverse Was There When The DCEU Faltered
While Gunn’s DC Universe has injected new energy into DC’s future, the shared universe’s past was not quite as promising. The DCEU received many criticisms over the years due to the varying quality of its projects, and while DC’s movie side was always seemingly having to put out a new fire in the past, the Arrowverse presented a perfectly functional shared universe for DC fans to migrate to. Despite the logistical challenges of a shared universe on the small screen, the ambitious project always worked well enough.
The Arrowverse thrived while the DCEU went into disarray after seeing Snyder’s projects fail to achieve the expected returns and DC parting ways with the director. With its several shows, the Arrowverse presented an expansive shared DC Universe on television. The DC movies even noticed the Arrowverse’s success, with executives asking the Arrowverse’s team to include Ezra Miller’s The Flash in a cameo role in the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. A DC Elseworlds movie focusing on the Arrowverse’s Justice League would serve as a sign of respect from the movie division for the role the TV team had in keeping DC fans excited.
2 An Elseworlds Movie Could Provide An Emotional Send-Off To The Arrowverse
The Arrowverse started back in 2012 with Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen coming back after being missing for five years at sea to become the Arrowverse’s first hero in Arrow. Since then, the universe blossomed, with Gustin’s Barry Allen first debuting in two episodes of Arrow season 2 before getting his own spinoff, The Flash. The trend continued to the point where the Arrowverse had six live-action series running simultaneously, excluding the retconned Superman & Lois. The Arrowverse’s shows included: Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, and Batwoman. Sadly, not all the series ended the way they should have.
The Arrowverse’s first show, Arrow, aired its series finale in 2020. Recently, the Arrowverse saw most of its shows get canceled due in part to a change in The CW’s, the Arrowverse’s network, scripted series plan, and partly due to the creation of Gunn’s new DC Universe, which likely did not want to have to share focus with a large shared DC TV universe as the Arrowverse. While a few Arrowverse heroes have shown up in The Flash season 9, with more still to appear — such as Amell’s Green Arrow — an Elseworlds Justice League movie would allow the Arrowverse to have a proper ending for its most important heroes.
1 Superman & Lois Showed What The Arrowverse Can Achieve With A Bigger Budget
Superman & Lois is easily better looking than all the Arrowverse shows, with fantastic cinematography and special effects. The series is also not lacking in the story department, with nearly three seasons of overwhelmingly positive reviews. Over the years, the Arrowverse series started to see a downgrade in both its story and VFX, the fruit of around 20-episode seasons for several years. The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Superman & Lois has a budget of $5 million per episode, which beats The Flash‘s allegedly $2 million per episode sum.
Given a slight budget increase, it is already noticeable the difference in quality the Arrowverse can deliver. If a DC Elseworlds Arrowverse Justice League movie gets made with the regular superhero film budget of $100-$200 million, then there is a high chance that DC will have a bona fide blockbuster on its hands. Many Arrowverse actors have been requested to join DC’s movies by fans over the years, and an Arrowverse Justice League movie would be the perfect way for that to happen, honoring DC’s successful TV universe by allowing the Arrowverse to go out with a bang.
Key Release Dates
