Warner Bros. figures it might as well cancel DC FanDome while they’re at it
Like Batgirl, DC’s own virtual fan event is no longer on the calendar
Another day, another Warner Bros. Discovery cancelation. After getting its fill of canceling television shows hours before the premiere and canceling movies that are almost done, Warners has moved on to event cancelation. DC FanDome, the proprietary online celebration of all things Detective Comics, will no longer be happening this year. We could chalk it up to a tax write-down, but how much are they really saving on a virtual fan event, especially when WBD is working its butt off to alienate whatever fans they have left?
Per IndieWire, the company blamed this cancelation on the proliferation of comic book conventions last year. “With the return of in-person events, Warner Bros. Discovery is excited to be able to engage with our fans live at numerous comic-cons around the world and will not be scheduling DC FanDome for 2022.”
They’re not wrong. Following the quarantines and shutdowns due to the pandemic, FanDome emerged, along with Comic-Con At Home, as stopgaps for studios, publishers, and other content pushers to hawk their wares. DC previously premiered trailers for hot properties like The Batman and Peacemaker and even hosted the virtual premiere of Wonder Woman 1984 through its “global experience.” And yet, two years on, it just doesn’t seem worth it anymore.
They’re not the only ones to come crawling back. Marvel returned to Comic-Con this year after a three-year break. Warner Bros was there, too, trying to drum up excitement over something called Black Adam. But, unfortunately, it looks as though the studio is happy to let some other poor soul field questions like “What would happen if Solomon Grundy entered the Lazarus Pit?”
In early August, we learned that WBD CEO David Zaslav is putting together another 10-year plan to save the DC cinematic universe and try to make it Marvel. “We have done a reset,” he said in an earnings call earlier this month. “We’ve restructured the business where we are going
to focus, where there is going to be a team with a ten-year plan
focusing just on DC. We believe we can build a much more sustainable
business.” Strangely, making a jumble of stylistically divergent superhero movies before scrapping the whole thing is exactly how Marvel captured the public imagination.