YMMV / DC Universe Animated Original Movies

• Audience-Alienating Era: Many people felt that following Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, there was a clear dip in quality mostly thanks to Warner Animation working on interconnected New 52 adaptations, stand-alone adaptations and original animated stories at the same time. While some movies released after The Flashpoint Paradox were well received, most were considered forgettable with many fans feeling that the New 52 movies specially were incredibly mediocre thanks to the source material which is considered an Audience-Alienating Era in itself (or sometimes for not directly adapting it) and for their focus on Batman and Damian Wayne/Robin. While Warner Animation attempted to placate fans by adapting popular stories like the New Teen Titans' Judas Contract storyline and the Death and Return of Superman and moving away from the New 52 source material, it failed to reignite interest and in 2020, Warner decided to end their Interconnected Animated Universe and focus on a new universe after the mediocre reception and sales of their recent one.
• Broken Base: There are fans who dislike both attempts at a Shared Universe, thinking that DC’s animated films work better as standalone stories and argue that the decision to create an interconnected universe is what led to the decay in quality. Others however feel that both animated universes have good films and that unlike standalone films they can tell an overreaching narrative, and also point out that DC hasn’t stopped making standalone films.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Fan Myopia: DC's DTV movie line is very niche, with an average of about $6 million in sales per film - in other words even the more successful ones will never have been consumed by more than a few hundred thousand people. A single middling superhero movie or show has likely made more money and been viewed by more people than all fifty combined. You would never know this going just by how often they're talked up online.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Almost all of the films have a 75-80 minute length, the minimum required for a film to be considered feature-length which makes for rather condensed storytelling.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: These films are made strictly for a grown up audience, with many of these movies pushing the PG-13 rating to its limit and in some cases, go straight to R. The movies feature intense, often graphic violence, surprisingly common swearing, and ramped-up sensuality. Despite this, some parents think that because it's animated and they're superhero movies, that they must be in line with the more kid-friendly DC Animated Universe (which itself could get pretty damn dark), and thus perfectly acceptable for kids. It certainly didn't stop Cartoon Network (rather than [adult swim]) from airing Superman: Doomsday (which was aired on their action block Toonami, edited for a TV-PG-V rating) and Batman: Gotham Knight (aired during regular daytime hours, and edited for a TV-14 rating).

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