The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most successful movie franchise of all time – that is now official – and, after a number of disappointing movies in recent years (Superman Returns, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern etc), DC are desperately trying to catch up.

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy was fantastic, but that’s been and gone, so the DC Cinematic Universe has just one movie to its name – the very divisive 2013 offering Man of Steel – so they have a long way to go to match Marvel Studios and their twelve-movie franchise.

They seem to be making some pretty major mistakes already, however, and they could ruin their chances of truly competing with the MCU.

We certainly hope everything goes well for DC and their distributors Warner Brothers, but let’s take a look at some of the mistakes they’re already making with their franchise…

Rushing Its Expansion

Marvel Studios were extremely methodical with the Marvel Cinematic Universe – there were five movies before any of the key heroes met each other and formed the Avengers in the sixth – but DC are doing things very differently.

With only one movie down, no less than five major heroes and members of the Justice League (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman) will share screen time in the next one (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) and that is undoubtedly going to feel forced.

There is also a risk of poor character development, as these characters vie for screen time in a movie that will have enough going on without having to introduce and develop them all.

You can’t help but feel that it would be better to introduce some of them either in their own movies or, at the very least, in separate movies.