After teasing that he and fellow DC Studios CEO Peter Safran were going to be announcing the first part of their plan for DC Comics-based content going forward, James Gunn today began talking up some of the movies and shows we can expect. And that includes new versions of Batman, Superman, Supergirl, Green Lantern and more. Watch the announcement here, and read the full breakdown below.
Gunn started by confirming that the existing DC movies still to be released — Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom – will all still make it to cinemas, with The Flash and its universe-rebooting nature proving key to helping to usher in the new paradigm. They will lead into what Gunn and Safran are calling 'Gods And Monsters', effectively the first chunk of the first part of the plan. It'll be a mix of TV (both animated and live-action) and movies, with games tying in as needed.
So what can we expect? Gunn talked up 10 initial titles. For TV, first up will be the animated Creature Commandos, which looks to include the likes of Weasel (as seen in The Suicide Squad). Gunn has written the first batch of episodes and the plan is for characters to cross between animated and live-action, and for the same actor to both voice and play the role where possible.
There was also confirmation of Peacemaker spin-off series Waller, with Viola Davis reprising her role as the tough wrangler of Task Force X, interacting with some characters from Peacemaker. That show will be overseen by Christal Henry, who was a writer on the TV Watchmen, and Jeremy Carver who created Doom Patrol. The series will sit between the first and second seasons of Peacemaker.
Next up, one of DC's heavy hitters: Superman, which will truly kick off the new DCU with Superman: Legacy. Gunn is writing the new take on the hero, and there is the hope he'll also direct (though that hasn't been confirmed yet). And it has a locked in release date of 11 July 2025.
That will be followed by Lanterns, which is the latest iteration of the series that has been in development at HBO Max for a while now. It'll be an Earth-set series featuring Lanterns Hal Jordan and John Stewart (with others popping up) and is described as True Detective with a "terrifying mystery" that ties into the wider universe.
Back to the movies and another one of Gunn's passion projects, The Authority, which will utilise characters from the WildStorm Comics Imprint that DC bought. It's a very different story of superheroes looking to fix a world they see as broken by any means necessary.
On TV, Paradise Lost is a show set on Themyscira, the birthplace of Wonder Woman, and described as Game Of Thrones with the Amazons. No word yet on whether we'll meet a new Diana here.
Batman will be all new in the main DCU via The Brave And The Bold, adapting Grant Morrison's run, and featuring yet another Bruce Wayne who tries to keep his son, Damien Wayne, in line as Robin. This will launch the "Bat-family" into the movie universe.
Booster Gold is touted as an HBO series featuring a loser from the future who travels back in time and uses the tech from his era to be a hero people love. Gunn describes it as "imposter syndrome in superhero form".
Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow will be a big-scale sci-fi film based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s comic run. It features a "darker, harsher" version of Kara Zor-El raised on a surviving chunk of Krypton who sees everyone around her die. Cheery!
Finally, a new Swamp Thing movie will be a horror-inflected origin story for the creature, one that still intersects with the rest of the DCU.
And what of the likes of Matt Reeves' The Batman or Todd Phillips' Joker sequel? They will fall under the umbrella title 'Elseworlds'. "The bar for an Elseworlds tale is going to be higher than the bar for a movie within the DCU," says Gunn. "Not that we’re not always going to have a high bar, but it’s got to be something really special for us to tell that story outside of our regular continuity and to spend the money to make it."
