It’s been a quiet couple of years for Warner Bros.’ DC Comics film properties—still sometimes referred to, with a minimum of catchiness, as the DC Extended Universe. While their rivals over at Marvel have released four films in 2021, DC unleashed only one, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. (Two, if you count Zack Snyder’s Justice League.)
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That’s set to change pretty dramatically this year, though, something Warner Bros. made clear today with a new teaser showcasing the four superhero films it expects to deploy in 2022: The Batman, Black Adam, The Flash, and Aquaman sequel The Lost Kingdom.
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(If we’re getting nit-picky here, it’s not clear yet if The Batman—a sort of Hail Mary pass to keep the character active in movie theaters after Ben Affleck got so, so tired of it—formally “counts” as a DCEU film. It’s definitely getting the push, though.)
Among other things, said teaser includes more footage than we’ve previously seen from Flash, Aquaman, and especially Black Adam, which had previously only shown off some concept art and a very brief teaser. We’ve got plenty more to chew on now, including lots of shots of the members of the Justice Society who’ll be serving as Dwayne Johnson’s supporting cast.
That includes footage of Aldis Hodge going full-Hawkman, Pierce Brosnan doing a little enigmatic mentoring as the helmeted Doctor Fate, and Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell getting in some face time as Atom Smasher and Cyclone, respectively. All that, in addition to a lot of The Rock doing his patented Pensive Face.
The Flash stuff, meanwhile, is mostly material we’ve seen before, although it continues to be kind of surreal to hear Michael Keaton’s voice attached to it. (He’s reprising his role from the 1989 Batman, a concept that remains thrilling despite our best internal efforts.) And James Wan’s Aquaman footage mostly just shows that, yep, Jason Momoa is still Aquaman, DC’s wettest champion.
All of this is wrapped up with a message asserting that “The World Needs Heroes!”, because clearly we’ve all been waiting for The Wet Man to come back and give us a little hope in these dark times. DC’s 2022 slate will begin rolling off the line next month, with The Batman in theaters on March 1; Black Adam lands on July 29, followed by The Flash on November 4, and Aquaman on December 16.
