For the first time since its inception in 2020, providing an online alternative to in-person events during the COVID epidemic, the DC Fandome has been canceled for this year. Speculation and rumors have been growing over the last couple of months, with no official announcement from DC to announce this years iteration, with last years being announced a good six months before it took place.
With all the shake-ups occurring across the board with Warner Bros. Discovery and DC specifically, this latest hit to fans of the event and DC will feel like another slight towards them, as well as a money-saving exercise.
The Cancellations
Over the last few months it has been a rather tumultuous time over at DC, and Warner Bros. Discovery as a whole, with this latest news about the DC Fandome not helping. The merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery occurred earlier this year in April, and since then, it seems like one thing after another has been canceled, delayed, sold or destroyed completely, in what publicly has been deemed a ‘quality assurance’ move, but privately is considered to be for tax-write offs, to save expenditure and in the long run, possibly make the future sale of certain branches of the company easier.
David Zaslav has been the main man in the firing line, both being the one leading the charge with all the cancellations, shake ups etc, and being the one lambasted and criticized by fans and media alike. DC specifically, he’s cancelled Batgirl, which was more or less done, all bar a little bit of post-production left to do. His official stance on the cancellation was:
“Our ambition to is bring Warners back and produce great high quality films. We can build a long-term sustainable growth business out of DC…we’re not releasing a film before it’s ready. The focus is to make these films as good as possible.”
With a $90 million budget, the film was due to be streaming straight to HBO Max, but by cancelling it before release, the company has landed themselves a tidy tax-write off in a time they’re struggling for money. Reports suggest the company will only be releasing two films this year, with Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam being one, and the Florence Pugh starring Don’t Worry Darling, the other.
Other cancellations include multiple projects, including Batman: Caped Crusader, which looks like it may be picked up elsewhere, the Wonder Twins television show and more. There was a time when Matt Reeves’ The Batman sequel was considered in danger, but that thankfully looks to have been unfounded, as was the worry for the spin-off HBO series based around Colin Farrell’s Penguin from the first film.
It’s Hard To Be A DC Fan Right Now
Being a DC fan has been hard enough the last ten years, with the DCEU seemingly to fall at every hurdle with the sub-par attempts we’ve had film wise. Even before the merger and the cancel-happy Zaslav got involved, the constant upheavel of the DCEU has provided much annoyance and stress for its fans. With the likes of Cavill’s Superman being up in the air, Affleck’s Batman leaving and then possibly rejoining the DCEU, the almost constant state of a PR nightmare that Ezra Millar has brought the production of The Flash and now all of this, it’s hard to be a DC fan.
With the cancellation of the DC Fandome, it could be something as simple as the company restructuring their intentions from the online only event towards real world, in-person events as the official company press release suggests. Having already featured at SDCC this year, and with more cancellations than new project leaks at the minute, maybe they feel they have nothing to showcase to warrant the event? Or perhaps, more cynically, they’re cancelling it as a way of saving more money.
Time will tell if this is the right move going forward for the company, but fans are justifiably annoyed, with many using the event to gleam every little detail about DC’s upcoming projects, others enjoying their favorite characters being front and center, and a considerable group of them probably looking for some reassurance as to the future of DC, HBO and the characters themselves. David Zaslav’s ‘ten year plan’ sounds all well and good in practice, but the ‘scorched Earth’ method Zaslav is using right now is frustrating and almost scary to DC fans, the cancellation of DC Fandome included.
How do you feel with this latest cancellation regarding DC Fandome?
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