If I were in charge of the DCEU…

…I’d probably lose the company a lot of money, because I’m terrible at predicting what will be popular. Seriously, I’m the worst. But every nerd likes to dream, so if I somehow became a Hollywood executive, scriptwriter, or [insert name of important job here], these are the DC movies I’d push to make. And sure, one reason is because I’d hope they’d be popular moneymakers, but I’d also just really, really want to watch them.

Batman Beyond

At one point, another Batman movie was on the list of upcoming DC projects, though I’m not seeing it on more recent forecasts. But we’ve had seven Batman movies already, so I think DC should accept they peaked at The Dark Knight and move on… to Gotham’s cyberpunk future.

If you never watched the Batman Beyond cartoon back in the day, then friend, you are missing out. Actually, stop reading this blog post and go get the DVDs to binge watch. I won’t be offended.

In an old ‘Ask Chris’ column, Chris Sims once described the show as “What If Batman Was Spider-Man,” which I think is perfect. It takes all the high school drama and teenage shenanigans that made Spider-Man: Homecoming fun and puts it in the gothic and twisted setting of Gotham that we all know and love.

Grumpy old man Bruce Wayne is just the best, and Terry McGinnis, the new younger Batman, is relatable and very much his own character rather than being Bruce 2.0. Their multifaceted mentor/mentee relationship is the core of the show and full of just so much snark.

So, yeah. “Batman in the future” seems like a movie pitch that would be instantly accepted, but what do I know? I’d just really love to see Batman Beyond on the big screen.

And if a movie version could give Terry’s girlfriend, Dana, some actual personality and bearing on the story, that’d be great too.

Static Shock

So now that Black Panther proved that movies starring black superheroes can make ALL THE MONEY, we can finally get a Static Shock movie, right?

Like Batman Beyond, Static Shock became one of my favorites thanks to its truly excellent cartoon series that ran in the 2000s. The premise is simple enough. A chemical explosion caused by gang violence releases a gas into Dakota City that causes some people to mutate and develop superpowers. As you can expect, a lot of these people become supervillains, but Virgil Hawkins uses his ability to control electricity and magnetism to become the hero Static.

Like I said, simple enough. What made Static Shock great was the complex and believable characters, multicultural cast, and surprisingly adept way it addressed social issues.

Static made an appearance in season 2 of Young Justice, had a cameos in other DCAU cartoons, and there’s talk of him maybe appearing in Black Lightning later on, but I think he’s more than capable of leading his own movie.

Zatanna

A Zatanna movie would basically be the Harry Potter franchise mixed with the superhero genre, and tell me that doesn’t sound awesome.

We actually might get to see Zatanna on the big screen, since Justice League Dark is currently in some form of development, and she’s traditionally been a core member of that team. But she doesn’t need those other guys diluting her awesomeness. The woman should have her own movie.

A truly magical superhero movie is something I feel we still haven’t gotten. Doctor Strange came close, though they still tried to explain away “magic” as a form of manipulating other-dimensional energy or whatever. Besides, Doctor Strange was… Well, it was a lot like Justice League in that it was good but not great.

I want to see Zatanna straight up turn a bad guy into a rabbit. I want Lovecraftian horrors, occult ceremonies, goblins and fairies and secret, hidden worlds. There’s so much potential for creativity and stunning visuals here, and Zatanna’s power of backwards speaking spells is really cool in any medium. Plus, she’s just a fun character when she’s written well. There’s a lot of opportunity to explore her backstory and relationship with her father, and I’ve always liked that she’s one of the few superheroines I can think of who has a male sidekick. (You usually see it the other way around.)

So yeah, I’d love to see this movie, though I don’t expect it will ever happen. The best I can hope for is that she gets a decent amount of screen time in Justice League Dark.

Birds of Prey

It may be wishful thinking, but superheroes movies seem to be slowly moving away from The Smurfette Principle. The original Avengers movie lineup was 1 woman to 5 men. Justice League? 1 woman to 4 men. Then Avengers 2 came out and we got another woman added! (And two more dudes.) Suicide Squad had something like a 5 men to 2 women ratio, and then Guardians of the Galaxy 2 had three whole ladies on the team for a while before Nebula left.

Three on a team of eight still isn’t much, but it’s the best we’ve got, so I’ll take it.

Tessa Thompson, the actress who played Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok, is pushing for an all-female Marvel movie in phase 4, which I would watch the heck out of. There’s no reason DC can’t beat them to the punch. After all, DC put out Wonder Woman back when Marvel had no plans of making a Black Window solo film and was pushing back Captain Marvel’s release date so they could put out yet another Spider-Man movie. (Not that I’m bitter or anything.)

Birds of Prey is the obvious choice. It’s a great comic book series, and my favorite run was the original with Oracle, Huntress, and Black Canary. It did really good work focusing on the friendships between these complex, badass heroines and threw them against some great villains and plots.

There’s no reason to stop with just those three characters, though. Steal Katana from Suicide Squad and give her more screen time. Grab Vixen; she’s been really cool when she’s popped up in the CW superhero shows. You could have such an incredible ensemble of ladies here.

If nothing else, Birds of Prey deserves a second chance after that awful early 2000s TV adaptation.

What movies would you make if you were in charge of the DCEU? What upcoming DC movies are you most excited about? Share your thoughts in the comments.