A Geeky Viewpoint

The rumor mill is about to go into overdrive concerning issues within Warner Bros., DC Studios, and Justice League Helmer Zack Snyder.

Recently it has been reported that many Warner Bros. executives were humiliated by the caustic reviews of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.   The movie scored a 27 (out of a possible 100) on Rottentomatoes.com, metacritic scored it a 51 (and people think they were being very generous) and audience reviews we generally middling.
At $166 M the movie did open to 7th largest domestic opening in history (has since dropped to 8th) before falling off the face of the box office cliff.  The film will earn slight less than 2x its opening weekend, currently at $326, where most tent-poles are in the 3x category or more.   Domestically it is on track to fourth highest grossing super-hero film of the year and possibly it might even slide into fifth.

Ben Affleck was elevated into a executive producer's role for Justice League Part One.
Seth Grahame-Smith leaves the directors chair for the Flash (2018) over creative differences.
A Harley Quinn stand alone movie is in the works with Margot Robbie producing.
Jason Wan, currently attached as director of Aquaman (2018) film has had to TWICE deny leaving the project.
Geoff Johns and Jon Berg were installed as co-runners of DC Studios (think Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios).

The final budget for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was not announced; however we know the film was substantially over its announced budget of $250 M.     Rumors from sources that should be in the know have suggested the production budget was closer to $300 M with another $150 M to $250 M in the films marketing campaign.   Just assuming the total budget was some where between $450 M and $500 M is not out of the question.    Considering the film returned just under $500 M to Warner Bros. when you assume standard returns for ticket sales suggest the film was very much in the barely broke even category, give or take.

Reports that Warner Bros. have placed a hard cap on production costs for Justice League: Part One at $200 M are unnerving in the industry.

What exactly is Ben Affleck new role as Executive Producer mean for the project has been debated across the web.   Here is what we know; Ben Affleck has an Oscar for screen writing and an Oscar for best picture to go along with his 67 other awards, Zack Snyder has a grand total of 3 minor awards and no Oscars.   Ben Affleck movies have a ROI of about 3 to 1, Zack Snyder's is roughly 1 to 1.   See where we are going with this?  
It's clear that after two less than stellar performances with DC products Warner Bros. is not happy with Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah Snyder who produces all of Zack's movies.    Warner Bros. has seen a lot of success in multiple genre of films with Ben Affleck and he is a professed comic book fan.
Executive Producer can mean lots of things, from someone who made the film possible to the actual boss on the project.   It could be a reward for his role in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice or Warner Bros. could have looked at his record and asked him to take the lead.
Reports indicate that Ben Affleck will have final say on the script, which has been penned by Chris Terrio who previously worked on Argo with Ben Affleck and assisted on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.   
Other reports suggest that Ben Affleck also has the ability to "strongly suggest" changes to filming direction for scenes and takes.   Early reports are indicating that Zack Snyder is not totally comfortable with this situation.

Seth Grahame-Smith who is mostly known as a writer, but was in the directors chair for the Flash (2018) stepped down citing, as usual, creative differences.   What's unusual about this situation is Seth Grahame-Smith is a first time director with a large background in writing (Dark Shadows, Lego Batman Movie) compared to a few others with half-a-dozen other movies under their belt.     No replacement has been named.

Word surfaced a Harley Quinn solo or female driven DC film was being considered with Margot Robbie producing, she also plays Harley Quinn and is assumed she will reprising her role as Harley Quinn.  

Finally the big news hit yesterday afternoon, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg were named co-runners of DC Studios.   They are in a similar situation as Kevin Feige who is President of Marvel Studios.  This is a new position in Warner Bros. and DC Studios, and several other sub-studios also had show-runners named and it is assumed more will be named in the future.
Geoff Johns will be in an interesting position, up until yesterday he was Chief Creative Officer at DC Comics, a producer with writing credit in DC TV universe and Co-Writing the upcoming untitled Batman movie with Ben Affleck.   Originally he as comic book writer for DC Comics.  
Jon Berg is a executive VP at Warner Bros. who has extensive history working with Ben Affleck on several movies including Argo, Gone Girl and the forthcoming Live by Night.

The DC movie slate is expected to change dramatically in the next few months, but it may take far more time than that for the public to know.  For example was the idea of a Harley Quinn movie before or after the leadership change.  Will it survive?

Time will tell.