By Brandon T. McClure
The new Co-CEO of DC Studios, James Gunn promised to tell audiences what his plans are for this new era of DC in January of 2023. True to his word, on the last day of January, Gunn revealed part of the first chapter of his and Peter Safran’s new plan. This new plan is separated into chapters with the first one titled “Gods and Monsters” and looks to revitalize the DC slate with a combination of prestige television shows, animated television shows, and of course big budget blockbuster films. This new first chapter for DC’s cinematic universe is the most ambitious one yet and potentially the most exciting.
To kick things off, James Gunn talked about the remaining DC films that are releasing in 2023. Gunn and Safran had inherited four films that are meant to release this year, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and finally Blue Beatle. These films can be considered a prelude to the upcoming chapter one but Gunn was clear that they do fit in with his new vision. The Flash was always meant to reboot the DC film franchise anyway. The actors from these movies are also likely to return, especially Momoa who Safran stated is working on Aquaman 3. Gunn also put to rest the rumors that Jason Momoa would be playing Lobo.
While many characters are being recast, many are not. Gunn made it clear that The Flash would not lead to a complete reboot. The door is open for the likes of Zachary Levi, Gal Gadot, and even Ezra Miller to return. In the case of Miller, the new heads of DC Studios are willing to keep conversations open with the actor while they go through their recovery. Miller became a very controversial figure lately, so it makes sense that they would be more cautious with them going forward.
The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Supergirl (Sasha Calle) in The Flash.
Then Gunn began to talk about what the initial projects of his first chapter are going to be. He started with a new animated series called Creature Commandos. This new animated series will be written by Gunn and will feature Amanda Waller creating a team of supernatural heroes which include Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein, Rick Flag Sr, Doctor Phosphorus, Weasel, and more. When it comes to the cast of this series, the hope is to cast actors who will be able to play the same characters in live-action. Marvel attempted the same thing with What If…? but had to settle for sound-a-likes for some parts. Gunn made it clear that the hope is that the actors will remain consistent through film, television, animation, and video games.
Film, TV, and animation connected is old hat at this point. While Marvel hasn’t committed to connecting their animated shows, including the upcoming Spider-Man: Freshman Year, they are slowly developing a multimedia franchise through theatrical and streaming distribution. Connecting video games is the big question mark here. When Insomniac was developing Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4, they were not required to make sure that it was the same Spider-Man that Tom Holland played. So the question of how much these video games will connect remain. It’s possible that the output of games that Gunn wants to connect to his new franchise would be separate from “Elseworlds” games. Because DC Studios is now controlling everything DC-related, video games would just be developed through their vision and not necessarily connected to their shared universe.
James Gunn mentioned that his goal for the new DC cinematic universe was to make sure that anything not a part of the same universe, is specifically labeled as an Elseworlds. Movie franchises like The Batman and Joker were explicitly mentioned, as well as Teen Titans Go. It’s interesting that he specifically felt that Teen Titans Go needed to be mentioned since it’s very unlikely audiences think the show takes place in the same world as Peacemaker. But with so many DC shows ending, such as Doom Patrol and the entire Arrowverse, perhaps there will be fewer shows developed that will take place outside of the new “aligned continuity” that James Gunn and Peter Safran are developing.
While they may have inherited the Elseworlds films and shows, they seem to be willing to embrace them. This could attract filmmakers uninterested in being part of a shared universe and allow them to develop moves outside of “Gods and Monsters”. Gunn and Safran are already willing to have two different actors play Batman so who’s to say how far that will go. The sky is, potentially, the limit. The same is true for the relatively popular DC original animated films that WB has been putting out for over a decade. Unlike the previous regime, everything now falls under DC Studios. This includes shows and direct to BluRay animated movies. With Gunn and Safran overseeing everything in a way that Walter Hamada was not, only time will tell how long these films continue. They don’t make a lot of money for the company and it may not be worth it to keep them up after a while.
The rest of Gunn’s plan includes a new Superman film called Superman: Legacy, a series based on Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller called Waller, a horror film centered around Swamp Thing, and many more. These projects are already exciting, and when they are paired with a live-action Green Lantern TV series centered around John Stewart and Hal Jordan, titled Lanterns, and a movie based on Tom Kings Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow mini-series, it’s clear this is a line-up of projects developed by a long time fan of comic books. James Gunn clearly reads comic books and keeps up with them. His inclusion as the head of DC Studios is every comic book fan's dream. He has the power to read a comic book and immediately green-lights a movie based on that same comic.
Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) in Suicide Squad.
The Brave and the Bold is another movie that was announced. This film will introduce the new Batman of this continuity. Robin has been absent from Batman adaptations since 1997’s Batman and Robin and it’s time to change that. This film will introduce Damian Wayne, the biological son of Batman and the current Robin in the comics. While that is certainly exciting for fans of Grant Morrison’s seminal run on Batman, Safran went on to say that this film will also introduce characters from the Bat-Family. Batman adaptations have kept him alone for decades and it’s wonderful that there will be a Batman film that will touch on the thing that has made his comic book counterpart so endearing, his family. It’s too early to say which of his family will turn up, but at this point, they’re all on the table.
Back in the early days of Marvel Studios, there was a story group that helped develop the franchise and doctor scripts. This story group was disbanded after the very public falling out that happened when Edgar Wright left Ant-Man. Similar to those old Marvel Studios days, Gunn and Safran brought on writers to help develop chapter one including Drew Goddard (The Martian), Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight), Christina Hobson (The Flash), Christal Henry (Watchmen 2019), and Tom King (Mister Miracle). Gunn indicated that some of these writers would continue working on projects, including Henry, who is co-showrunning Waller with Jeremy Carver, who was the creator behind the recently canceled Doom Patrol series.
Damian Wayne from Grant Morrison’s Batman (illustrated by Andy Kubert).
Something that was very important for Gunn and Safran to reiterate was that the goal of all these projects is to make sure that story comes first. Gunn called out other superhero films as not having third acts written by the time they’re shooting. A problem that many fans have picked up on through the years. In Gunn’s new regime, he vows to not let this be the case. It’s telling that only Superman: Legacy has a release date in this regard. Not committing to a release date, allows them to take their time and not put pressure on writers to finish the script in time to make a date that’s only two years away. Gunn was not pulling any punches during his interviews, clearly calling out Marvel when he made his story comments.
Gunn might have ruffled some feathers, however. Not only did he throw thinly veiled comments towards Marvel, but also the previous regime. “As everyone here probably knows, the history of DC is pretty messed up, it was fucked up,” he said. While Walter Hamada made sure that the films he produced were the visions of the filmmakers, Gunn feels that DC was just handing out IP to anyone who would smile at them. He specifically mentions Birds of Prey and Black Adam but also his own The Suicide Squad. “No one was minding the mint, they were just giving away IP like they were party favors to any creators that smiled at them,” he said. Many of the films he’s referring to are well-liked and the filmmakers put a lot of effort into making them work, so it might not have been the smartest move to throw shade their way. This is especially apparent when referring to the canceled Batgirl film as something that would “hurt the DC brand.” While that’s a little hard to believe, perhaps it’s time to let the filmmakers, who worked hard on the movie, move on.
It’s unclear what kind of shows could be coming next from DC, but Gunn mentioned the Arrowverse as part of the “messed up” history of DC. Frankly, this was an unfair jab at a series of shows that created a beloved universe for many years. But with that coming to an end, and Superman & Lois only having one or two more seasons left (according to Gunn and Safran), there are not many DC shows left (Harley Quinn remains the lone survivor from the DC Universe days) Clearly, prestige TV shows are going to be very important to Chapter 1 going forward, but could we see more unrelated shows? Besides the Penguin series, it sounds like DC shows won’t be as frequent as they used to be. Perhaps it’s fitting the Arrowverse is ending, since it could mark the end of an era of DC television, the likes of which we might not see again. For every Pennyworth: The Origins of Batman’s Butler, there was a Doom Patrol, so it wasn’t all bad, after all, many of the Arrowverse stars are iconic. Time will tell when the next Elsworlds TV series will be, but the frequency will be drastically reduced.
Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Negative Man (MattBomer), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Cyborg (Joivan Wade), Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby) and Chief (Timothy Dalton) in Doom Patrol.
Something that should be apparent at this point is that Gunn is taking all the lessons he learned from the Guardians of the Galaxy films and incorporating them on a bigger scale. Marvel, for all their success, remains somewhat controversial with some of their choices of creative talent. Not in the way that they’re bad or problematic, but their insistence to hire inexperienced writers to develop their shows and sometimes movies have begun to weigh on their fanbase. This looks to be something Gunn isn’t too keen to repeat. While the creative teams behind most of the projects have not been revealed, the creative talent for Waller indicates that Gunn is looking to hire experienced creatives and not first-time showrunners.
This desire is one of the ways he’s hoping to avoid superhero fatigue, which he believes to be a real thing. Recently, studios have been more interested in making release dates that are set before creative teams have been assembled. It’s something that Marvel has become pretty adept at, but Gunn, who is primarily a writer, wants to be sure that no movie will be made before a screenplay is finished. “I’ve seen it happen again and again — it’s a mess, it’s the primary reason for the deterioration in the quality of films today, versus 20-30 years ago,” he said referring to studios being more concerned with hitting release dates. Gunn and Safran believe that if more care was put into the writing process, then they can avoid superhero fatigue, or as Safran put it “bad movie fatigue.”
This “Gods and Monsters” lineup is a dream come true for comic book fans no doubt, but it’s also DC’s last shot. This will be the third time they have set up the pieces to build a shared universe and if this doesn’t work then it’ll be very difficult to convince the general audience to care. As it stands, DC Studios already has an uphill battle ahead of them. With each regime change, the hill gets higher. Gunn and Safran are clearly very passionate about this lineup of films and believe that this is going to be the winning formula. Time will tell if that’s true, but there are a lot of big promises being made that could very well prove to be empty.