WB/DC Cinematic Universe News

Private event for the Press yesterday:

Twitter:

Superman On Film
"So…I know Chapter One of the DCU. I’m not going to leak it, because I don’t want to take any of the buzz away from the announcement tomorrow. All I’ll say is…I was way wrong about it only being 3-4 movies lol More tomorrow! What a time to be alive."

ViewerAnon
"OK I have been given permission to post hints for two projects that will be announced tomorrow. I cannot confirm or deny any guesses. The hints are: 000205 220726"

I predict a Kite Man movie.

More details of DCU Chapter 1 Slate: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...-unveils-dc-slate-batman-superman-1235314176/

Video:
https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1620468379672002565?cxt=HHwWioDSwfvZh_0sAAAA
Joker, The Batman, Teen Titans Go other things like that will be Elseworlds.




Creature Commandos: An animated seven episode series, written by Gunn, that is already in production. Originally a team of classic monsters assembled to fight *****, this is a modern take on the concept. The voice actors have yet to be cast but the executives are looking to find people who can voice the animated characters and also portray the live-action versions when the anti-heroes to show up in movies and shows.

Waller: A spin-off of Gunn’s own HBO Max hit series, Peacemaker, Viola Davis will return as the ruthless and morally ambiguous head of a government task force. It is being written by Christal Henry (Watchmen) and Jeremy Carver, the creator of the Doom Patrol TV series.

Superman: Legacy: The movie featuring the Man of Steel that Gunn is writing and may direct, although no commitments on that end have been made. While the two previous titles are meant to be “aperatifs,” in Safran’s words, Superman is the true kick off for the duo’s DCU plans. “It’s not an origin story,” Safran said. “It focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth justice and the American way. He is kindness in a world that thinks that kindness as old-fashioned.” A release date of July 11, 2025 has been penciled in.

Lanterns: Greg Berlanti’s long-in-the-works Green Lanterns TV series has been scrapped and the duo have parted ways with the longtime DC series steward. In its place will be a new take on the space cops with power rings. “Our vision for this is very much in the vein of True Detective,” Safran described. “It’s terrestrial-based.” It will feature prominent Lantern heroes Hal Jordan and John Stewart and is one of the most important shows they have in development. “This plays a really big role in leading into the main story we are telling across film and TV.”

The Authority: a movie based on a team of superheroes with rather extreme methods of protecting the planet that first originated in the late 1990s under an influential imprint known as Wildstorm, run by artist and now head of DC publishing, Jim Lee. “One of the things of the DCU is that it’s not just a story of heroes and villains,” said Gunn. “Not every film and TV show is going to be about good guy vs. bad guy, giant things from the sky comes and good guy wins. There are white hats, black hats and grey hats.” Added Safran: “They are kinda like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. They know that you want them on the wall. Or at least they believe that.”

Paradise Lost: The duo describe this HBO Max series as a Game of Thrones-style drama set on the all-female island that is Wonder Woman’s birthplace, Themyscira, filled with political intrigue and scheming between power players. It takes place before the events of the Wonder Woman films.

The Brave and the Bold: “This is the introduction of the DCU Batman,” said Gunn. “Of Bruce Wayne and also introduces our favorite Robin, Damian Wayne, who is a little son of a *****.” The movie will take inspiration from the now-classic Batman run written by Grant Morrison that introduced Batman to a son he never knew existed: a murderous tween raised by assassins. “It’s a very strange father-and-son story.”
And, importantly, it will feature a Batman not played by Robert Pattinson…

The Batman sequel: Pattinson will continue to portray the Dark Knight in at least one more crime saga movie directed by Matt Reeves. That movie, the executives revealed, will be released Oct. 3, 2025 and is being titled The Batman Part II.

“2025 is going to be a very big year for DC,” crowed Safran. “Superman and Batman within the same year.”

Booster Gold: an HBO Max series based on a unique and lower-tiered hero created in 1986. Safran said of the series, “It’s about a loser from the future who uses basic future technology to come back to today and pretend to be a superhero.” Gunn described it as “imposter syndrome as superhero.”

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow: Taking its cues from the recent Tom King-written mini-series, this movie project promises to have a different take than what most think of when the idea of Superman’s cousin comes to mind. “We will see the difference between Superman, who was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents from the time he was an infant, versus Supergirl, raised on a rock, a chip off of Krypton, and who watched everyone around her die and be killed in terrible ways for the first 14 years of her life and then come to Earth. She is much more hardcore and not the Supergirl we’re used to.”

Swamp Thing: a horror film that promises to close out the first part of the first chapter.

James Gunn and Peter Safran on Building a New DC Universe

The recently hired Co-Chairmen and CEOs of the new DC Studios have the weight of the universe on their shoulders—the DC Universe, that is. But it’s okay, they have plenty of superhero friends they can call on for assistance, from Superman and Batman, to Swamp Thing and Booster Gold, to…well, pretty much everyone ever created for DC.

Since being placed in charge of DC’s upcoming slate of films and TV series, the two newly minted execs had to hit the ground running, kickstarting the development process for their first batch of projects—ten of which were announced this morning—while shepherding already existing DC films and TV shows forward. Unsurprisingly, finding ways for it all to coexist was not without its challenges, but by Gunn’s own admission, they were aided by some good fortune.



“I think that we’ve gotten lucky with the next four movies because we have Shazam, which leads into Flash, which resets everything, which then goes into Blue Beetle, which is totally disconnected (from everything that came before) and can be a part of the DCU, which goes into Aquaman, which leads into Superman: Legacy, our first big project,” he explains. “But the one thing that we can promise is that everything from our first project forward will be canon and will be connected. We’re using some actors from the past, we’re not using other actors from the past, but everything from that moment forward will be connected and consistent.”

A key part of DC’s film and television on the near horizon amounts to a combination of both new and already established. Along with new projects like Superman: Legacy, Creature Commandos, The Brave and the Bold and The Authority, fans can expect a few highly anticipated follow-ups, like director Matt Reeves’ The Batman – Part II, which got a release date today of October 3, 2025.

It’s a lot to keep track of, even for superfans like us, so Gunn and Safran recently answered some questions about everything brewing at DC Studios to help give fans a sense of how it will all come together.



On why a shared universe is the right approach going forward…

Peter Safran: DC has had great individual movies over the years, but we think that what the audience really appreciates and needs is a connected universe. It minimizes audience confusion and it maximizes their connectivity to it across all the platforms.

James Gunn: I think that’s something that people love. I know that from my own experience. But again, we do have Elseworlds tales we’re telling. The bar for an Elseworlds tale is going to be higher than the bar for a movie within the DCU. 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.

On how many movies they’re aiming for each year…

Safran: Probably two movies and two HBO Max series per year.

About how they decide which medium to use for which project…

Gunn: It’s all story-based. To us, storytelling is 100% king. So, if it’s a story that’s more complicated, like the Lanterns or Waller story, or has more of an independent TV vibe, like Booster Gold, then that’s more suited for television. It has to do with tone, storytelling and if it’s something that we can tell in two hours and ten minutes. Or is it something that we need seven, eight or nine hours for?

Safran: We certainly debated a couple of these projects and where they fit better, but ultimately, this is where we landed.



On how they decide on ratings and whether something should be live action or animated…

Gunn: It depends on the story. We’re going to give every story what it deserves. Some things we know. Superman is definitely something we know we’d like to be PG-13, so I’m going to make sure it is. Other things, like the Waller TV show, are a little bit more mature. And we have other things that are aimed a bit more at young women or at kids that are still within this world.

Safran: And in terms of animation, it’s sometimes just a fun way to introduce characters or introduce stories that would frankly be too expensive to be done otherwise.

Gunn: Creature Commandos is a good example of that.

Safran: With Creature Commandos, they’re all digital characters.
On whether they’re planning any big, Justice League-type crossover events…

Gunn: Everything’s crossing over throughout. These characters are all interacting throughout the different stories.

Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean always. Brave and the Bold may just be Batman, Robin and the characters involved in that. But I know a lot of other times these characters cross around. In Creature Commandos, one of the main characters shows up in Waller.

About the role of that games might play in the shared universe…

Gunn: It’s not like we’re going to have the Superman movie come out and have this Superman game come out. It’s more like we’ll have the Superman film come out, then maybe two years later, we have the Supergirl movie coming out. So, what’s the story in between there? Is there a Krypto game that we can play that comes in between them? Something that’s still set in the world with these characters, but is its own thing. We want to give the prominence to games that they deserve.



Whether Matt Reeves’ Batman films will continue…

Gunn: Yes. Matt is working on The Batman – Part II, which he thinks of as a Batman crime saga that also includes the Penguin TV series. The Batman is its own thing. Matt’s hard at work on it. He came in and pitched us some amazing stuff the other day, so our plan is for that to continue.

Safran: Also, The Batman’s not a stepchild. It’s all under DC. We are fully invested in the success of The Batman just like we are everything else.

Gunn: Of course, everything’s going to be balanced so The Brave and the Bold is not going to be coming out in the same six month period as The Batman.

About the Jason Momoa Lobo rumors…

Gunn: Jason will not play two characters.

Safran: It’s too early to say. Jason always thought Aquaman was a trilogy in his own mind, but he also loves Lobo. He’s been very clear about that too. He’s never going to play two characters…

Gunn: …but we’ll figure it out after Aquaman 2.



On whether the animated movies from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will continue…

Gunn: We’re dealing with all that. Some of that stuff will continue as Elseworlds, but a lot of other stuff we’re starting to bring into animation with (Warner Bros. Animation President) Sam Register so that we’ll have things that are connected with this. I think there have been a lot of really marvelous DC cartoons, so we’re going to keep moving forward with that.

On whether they had to make any changes to The Flash…

Safran: We had input on it for sure, but there’s nothing we had to do in order to set up our universe.

Gunn: We’re very close to Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, the director and producer of The Flash. Andy’s going to be doing some more stuff for us.

About the writers helping to build this story and universe…

Gunn: We have Tom King. He has been my partner throughout all of this. He was giving me answers to sh*t before I took the job. So it’s me; him; Christal Henry, who worked on Watchmen; Christina Hodson, who wrote The Flash; Drew Goddard, who you probably know; and Jeremy Slater, who just did Moon Knight. That’s the group of people we’ve been meeting with and putting all of this together.



On the difference between DC Studios projects…

Gunn: Even though this is all a connected universe, it’s really important to me that the individual writers and directors on the projects give their own self-expression to it, just like they do in the comics. Everything doesn’t always look the same. Everything doesn’t always have the same expression. Different artists bring remarkably different looks, feels and tones. This is not the Gunnverse.

I want each project to have the feelings of the individual artist that’s working on it and to give them a lot of freedom—as long as it works—to create something special because what I’ve found through Marvel, what wasn’t exciting was when movies were tonally the same. What was exciting was when you had something like Guardians come out and everyone was like, “How is this raccoon going to be dealing with this God of Thunder? That’s going to be weird.”

But then when you actually see the mash-up happen, that’s what makes it so fun. So, to see seemingly tonally incongruent things come together is part of the fun of all this

James Mangold and Guillermo Del Toro both hint interest in the Swamp Thing movie.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CoH37-psNqo/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

Christ if they gave it to Del Toro then suddenly Swamp Thing becomes "The one to look out for". I actually enjoyed the cancelled TV series because it leaned more into the dark horror elements, but I can't think of anyone better to do Swamp Thing justice in a movie. And with Gunn confirming that "Ratings" aren't 100% set in stone except for them wanting Superman to be PG13, we could even get an 18s/R Rated version.

I liked Gunn's plan, most of the core characters are there in one form or another. There are also some lesser known characters so they can experiment with tone a bit to tweak what works. All in all more confidence building than the "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach. There's also a window for stories outside the main continuity which I like as well, giving them room to do stories that might not fit in with the world.

I guess Shazam's bit the dust for now.

I personally think only THANOS can save the DC Cinematic universe, now lol.

I've got my thoughts on how to save it but at this point I'm channeling my Michigan J. Frog.

This movie was doomed from last fall. When the powers that be decided to reboot everything, the movies already in production became the red headed step children. The Rock's behaviour didn't help the situation. And the advertising campaign for this movie was just awful.

Interesting article about Victoria Alonso, she was the Vice President of special effects for Marvel. The Marvel cinematic universe is in a bit of a panic, with the big tentpole movie, Ant Man looking like it's not going to make it's budget back. I'm wondering if the Comic Book movie genre has finally reached burn out, and if so, what happens to our DC universe moving into the future? Black Panther did okay at 800 million, but was expected to break 1 billion. Thor didn't do that great, and Doctor Strange did okay. But the days of Comic book movies dominating at the expense of everything else seem to be winding down.

I'm going to watch Shazam: Fury of the Gods this weekend. Couldn't avoid some spoilers sadly (CURSE YOU TWITTER) but still looking forward to see it. I loved the first Shazam. I hear it isn't doing so well atm which is sad. Also what's the deal with The Rock thinking Black Adam is more important than Shazam and tried to control the DCEU? LOL

The performance of the Marvel Movies has nothing to do with Comicbook Movie Burnout at all. This isn't a "DC vs Marvel" thing as I'm a fan of both, but after Endgame Marvels Movies and TV Shows have just been awful. A lot of them don't make sense when you think about their stories for 2 seconds, and the others are just dull hollow CGI fests.

If they'd left it at Endgame, although it's debatable to consider it a perfect run of Movies when it includes bad ones like Iron-man 2 and Thor 1, it still would have been considered one of the best connective Movie Universes ever. Now it just looks like they've overstayed their welcome simply to try to cash-in on it.

If marvel wants to go forward they need to find suitable replacements for the actors who wanted to retire from their franchise. No small task.

I really wanted another Captain America period piece set before his plane accident. "Captain America and the Invaders".

Also thought a Thunderbolts movie set between Infinity War and End Game could have been fun with the Masters of Evil taking advantage of the thanos snap ultimately bringing the Avengers back together.

Anyway...

I actually like "Fury of the Gods" more than the first Shazam movie but thats not saying much...

It would have been good if they had just let if they had just let it sit for 5-8 years after endgame. Let the anticipation build, but shareholders gotta get paid