DC FanDome, the one-stop shop for all things DC comic book movies, TV shows, and Actual Comics, is back for a second year of news, trailers, and series celebrations.
The DC movie slate is stacked for the next few years. 2022 will see the theatrical releases of The Batman, Black Adam, The Flash, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and a number of HBO Max originals, and then in 2023, Warner Bros. will release Shazam! Fury of the Gods — and quite possibly Wonder Woman 3.
Then there are The CW shows like The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Superman & Lois, and the upcoming Naomi, keeping the Arrowverse alive as DC expands its TV horizons in the form of Peacemaker and Green Lantern HBO Max. That’s on top of all the animated content coming to Eternal streaming various platforms over the next few years.
And let’s not forget comics. DC FanDome promises major announcements for Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the Milestone universe. It’s a big world out there, and all the heroes are in play.
The first new trailer for DC League of Super-Pets streaming in more than a year has finally dropped, and it’s as dark as night.
Attendees of DC FanDome, the event for devotees of the comic book company that birthed Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others, got the first look this weekend. It revealed much more of director Matt Reeves’ vision of a rainy, gloomy, seemingly perpetually nighttime Gotham City and its fearsome guardian.
The 2-minute, 45-second trailer mostly used footage not seen in the previous one, which debuted Aug. 20, 2020 — when the film was still in production — and introduced Zoë Kravitz as a ragged, street-level Catwoman, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, a masked person we presume to be Paul Dano as the Riddler and, of course, Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman. That grim two and a half minutes unspooled to the eerie sounds of a cover of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” but it didn’t afford a glimpse of Colin Farrell’s Penguin and didn’t allow more than a few words spoken by Pattinson.
The new trailer The Marvels streaming, scored by what sounds like a cross between “Something in the Way” and Jóhann Jóhannsson’s stomach-churning “Sicario” soundtrack, leans into the fear-generating aspect of the hero. After all, in his origin story in “Batman” No. 1, Bruce Wayne said, “Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible, a … a … a bat!” It’s part of the character that previous film incarnations have merely acknowledged, while the trailer makes it seem “The Batman” will explore it.
More evidence is in the expansion on the words in the teaser that rocketed across the internet last week announcing the trailer drop: “It’s not just a signal,” says a voice over an image of the famed Bat-Signal in the teaser, “it’s a warning.”
The new footage opens with the arrest of the uncostumed Riddler played by Dano (sans mask) in a diner; as he’s apprehended, a glimpse into his coffee cup reveals a question mark drawn in the foam. We see Batman summoned by Gordon via the Bat-Signal, then facing off against the masked street gang already seen in the first trailer Venom – La furia di Carnage streaming.
There’s more of Kravitz as Catwoman, looking much more well appointed than she did previously. There’s also a confrontation between Batman and a prisoner — who may be Dano’s Riddler — our first glimpse of Andy Serkis’ Alfred, and Batman relentlessly pursuing a crime boss by Batmobile. By the way, this Bat-ride looks more like an armored muscle car than the urban tanks of the Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder iterations.
Perhaps most telling, there are reaction shots of both friend and foe horrified by Batman’s brutal takedowns of criminals.