Can you believe it? After a few years of referring to the DC Extended Universe as the DC Extended Universe, it turns out it’s not the DC Extended Universe after all! The moniker, it appears, was never something given by DC themselves, and is not the official way they refer to it.

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Abraham Riesman, the Vulture writer who wrote the extensive piece that went live this morning regarding the future of the DCEU (yeah, I’m still using it), revealed via Twitter that the term has unofficial origins. Here’s what he said over a series of tweets:

“Early on in my reporting, officials at WB/DC told em no one uses the term ‘DC Extended Universe’ internally and that it’s not official, and that they didn’t know who came up with it. I did some digging and found the first usage: [an] EW article from July 1, 2015. The writer of the article, Keith Staskiewicz, was hard to track down. Not on Twitter. No website. Finally got him on Facbook and asked him about the term. Turns out he just straight-up made it up as a joke. He said: ‘It was my own phrasing when I used it in the story. Just seemed like the kind of thing they’d call it! I just looked back on the piece now and noticed the (in-my-mind) sardonic little trademark symbol I gave it. Whoops.’ Years later, it’s in use everywhere as though it’s official. The lesson: never make a joke because no one gets jokes.”

No kidding. Given that EW is a big outlet, it was likely picked up from smaller blogs, and the rest is history. Our real question here is what term DC Films uses internally, and why haven’t they done more to push it onto outlets like us?

Well, they’d better get their act together quickly with that. With the impending Joker standalone film that takes place outside of the DCEU, they’d do well to have clear-cut terms used so that fans can keep these two branding identities separate in their heads.

What do you think DC should call the DCEU? Give us your best names down below!

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SOURCE: Abraham Riseman