They’re two of the most successful movies of the year, grossing a combined $1.5 billion at the global box office.
“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad” are also two of the year’s biggest disappointments, met with viciously negative reviews, bitter fans’ complaints and large second-weekend sales drops that indicate word-of-mouth was unkind, to say the least. The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern wrote that “Suicide Squad” represented “an all-out attack on the whole idea of entertainment” due to its “exceptional cynicism and startling ineptitude.”
Warner Bros. is responding to this paradox by charging full-speed ahead with plans for its DC “cinematic universe”—while conceding the movies to date have fallen creatively short, a rare public admission in Hollywood.
The studio has reworked the 2017-slated “Justice League” in hopes of making it less grim and depressing than March’s “Batman v Superman.” And it has put fan-favorite comic book and TV writer Geoff Johns in a senior position overseeing the next wave of movies, along with veteran production executive Jon Berg.
One of the duo’s main goals, they said in their first interview since taking the jobs this past spring, is to make DC superheroes on the big screen more inspiring.
“Mistakenly in the past I think the studio has said, ‘Oh, DC films are gritty and dark and that’s what makes them different.’ That couldn’t be more wrong,” said Mr. Johns, who has written comic books featuring most of the company’s top superheroes. “It’s a hopeful and optimistic view of life. Even Batman has a glimmer of that in him. If he didn’t think he’d make tomorrow better, he’d stop.”
Many have complained that such a sense of optimism was precisely what was missing from ​director Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman” and his 2013 Superman reboot “Man of Steel.” Neither Ben Affleck’s Batman nor Henry Cavill’s Superman crack a smile, and both films feature so much death and destruction, including killings perpetrated by the main characters, that bloggers labeled them the “DC cinematic murderverse.”
The shuffle that made DC movies a full-time job for Messrs. Berg and Johns came soon after the public reaction to “Batman v Superman.” Previously, no Warner executives were devoted exclusively to the studio’s superhero films. Mr. Berg worked on them along with other productions, and Mr. Johns was a consultant with no authority.
Their appointments indicate that after giving Mr. Snyder the type of long leash accorded Christopher Nolan on the hit “Dark Knight” Batman trilogy, Warner has concluded it needs to oversee its DC movies more closely.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Snyder said he was unavailable to comment.
There was precedent in comics for Mr. Snyder’s interpretations, particularly Frank Miller’s revered 1986 comic-book miniseries “The Dark Knight Returns,” in which Batman and Superman battle. And director David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad,” though it had significant reshoots and last-minute editing, was never going to be a lighthearted romp, since its source material is about villains coerced into doing good.
While they knew the movies had flaws and expected them to be controversial, Warner executives were taken aback by the overwhelmingly negative responses, people at the studio said. They believed they had created more grounded, character-based stories that, like “The Dark Knight,” would favorably stand out from chief rival Marvel Studios’ consistently successful but fluffier fare such as “Avengers” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
The negative reactions were troubling. Despite the box office, if people aren’t happy and excited to see what’s next when they come out of theaters, the long-term prospects for DC films and consumer products are poor. Warner plans to release at least two movies based on DC characters every year for the foreseeable future at a cost of several billion dollars. CEO Kevin Tsujihara has said DC is one of three pillars of his studio’s movie business, along with Harry Potter and Lego.
Still, Warner executives have found reasons to take heart. The fact that this year’s movies were met with strident opinions—instead of a shrug like the Twentieth Century Fox 2015 superhero flop “Fantastic Four”—indicates that fans care about the characters. Big opening weekends mean that the marketing and concepts resonated—a particularly impressive feat for “Suicide Squad,” given the low profile of the comic book on which it’s based. And even people who didn’t like the movies latched onto characters who proved popular, particularly Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Mr. Affleck’s Batman in “Batman v Superman” and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Will Smith’s Deadshot in “Suicide Squad.”
To have these characters be part of the fabric of pop culture is so rewarding, though of course we’re disappointed the movies weren’t better reviewed,” said Mr. Berg. He spoke from the London set of “Justice League,” where Mr. Snyder is a few weeks away from completing a five-month shoot.
“Justice League” was already intended to be less depressing than “Batman v Superman,” but Messrs Berg and Johns worked with Mr. Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio to make changes after gauging fan reactions to the superhero fight.
“We accelerated the story to get to the hope and optimism a little faster,” said Mr. Berg.
“Justice League” will also directly address Batman’s extreme actions in the last movie, such as torturing criminals and nearly killing the man of steel, rather than accept them as par for the course. And it’s expected to have fewer of Mr. Snyder’s controversial flourishes, like the dream sequences in “Batman v Superman,” in favor of focusing more tightly on the plot, people close to the picture said.
Plans to make “Justice League” a multipart story that would continue in a 2019 sequel also were abandoned.
“Justice League” will come out in November 2017, following next June’s “Wonder Woman.” Mr. Johns did a rewrite of the script for the superheroine’s origin story, working with director Patty Jenkins, and is writing a solo Batman movie to be directed by Mr. Affleck. It will feature Joe Manganiello, from “Magic Mike” and “True Blood,” as nemesis Deathstroke and could come as early as 2018, though Warner has not set a release date.
As he is writing screenplays and working with Mr. Berg to develop other coming DC movies including “Flash,” “Aquaman” and “Cyborg,” Mr. Johns has pulled back from his work on DC television shows and comic books.
This past May, however, he wrote a special called “Rebirth” that gave DC’s comic-book line a more hopeful tone and a renewed focus on each superhero’s core qualities—following complaints that, like the recent movies, they had gone astray from what fans loved about them. Early sales numbers have been strong, and Mr. Johns said he is applying lessons to his film work.
“We’re trying to take a really hard look at everything to make sure we stay true to the characters and tell stories that celebrate them,” he said.
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