David Zaslav defends Warner Bros. Discovery cuts: ‘We did not get rid of any show that was helping us’ Read more
There is no evidence one show is helping DC Comics in particular. At the end of September, after six months of rebooting, some 22 DC-branded shows had been announced, with Warner Bros. confirming the full lineup in November. Of these, only a handful appear to be in any way connected to DC Comics. And they were all cut from the schedule. The move makes sense – or, rather, does not make sense – if you assume that the reboot would have meant they moved their existing shows to new timeslots. But then you look at the shows that Warner Bros. saved from cancellation, and it just doesn’t add up.
It began last month when DC’s President of Creative Affairs, Dan DiDio, announced new series from DC’s TV and film franchises, including Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. The first of these, Gotham, had been under development for just over a year, when DiDio revealed the DC-branded shows would be rebooting existing series. The shows would now run in various periods during the day: The CW show would debut during “sunrise” from CBS; The CW’s The Flash would premiere in the early afternoon; and Batman would have to wait until 10pm. The series were all still to debut in primetime in the US, but the changes were already making it look as though DC had abandoned the shows for another reboot.
A number of DC fans were disappointed by the new scheduling. “At this point I am thinking they just wanted to move the shows to primetime to save money,” says Jessica Shaw. “It doesn’t justify their decision.”
But Warner Bros. defended the changes, noting that the shows were moving to primetime now, as was the case the previous year with The CW’s Arrow. “The timing of the reboots is to give each series time to be successful, so that the audience keeps coming back each week,” Warner Bros. said in a statement.
There are two things that make the show-movements strange, and maybe even troubling. The first is that, in the time-honoured fashion, the only way DC has ever rebooted a programme was during a major event, usually in the summer or autumn of
