By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
DC Studios has served notice it’s ready to compete with rival Marvel in building an integrated superhero universe.
James Web and Peter Safran, the newly appointed co-CEOs of DC Studios, this week revealed their overall plan for the franchise.
That initially includes 10 new films and series, but the real news is that the studio will follow a strict rule that any show or film considered to be “inside” the DC Universe will have to be consistent with every other production in the DCU.
“DC has been disconnected in film and television for a long time,” said Gunn. It’s one of our jobs, mine and Peters, to come in and make sure the DCU is connected in film, television, gaming, and animation, that the characters are consistent, played by the same actors, and it works within one story. And if something is outside of that, like Matt Reeves’ Batman or Todd Phillips’ Joker or Teen Titans Go, that is clearly labeled as DC Elseworlds, outside of the mainstream DCU continuity.”
That level of control of an overarching story line for the DCU will extend right down to actors having to commit to doing the voiceovers for an animated series, if that series is based on a DCU film or series. For example, whoever is chosen for the role of Superman in the next film will also be required to do voiceover for any Superman animated film or series, and the storyline must fit in with the storyline for the character and the entire DC Universe.
It’s big news for fans, but even bigger news for current and potential licensees. The revamp of the DCU will introduce entirely new slates of characters, such as the super-powered ‘loser’ Booster Gold, the weird team of super monsters Creature Commandos, or the antiheroes known as The Authority, a sort of Justice League gone bad.
With that in mind, Gunn issued a video statement that played on social media channels, outlining the studio’s vision for the superhero property. Rather than dissect the message, we’ve chosen to transcribe the entire announcement. (Editor’s Note: Some errors or grammatical mistakes have been edited for clarity.)
“Hey everybody, I’m James Gunn, I’m the co-CEO of DC Studios.
So, as many of you know, DC has been disconnected in film and television for a long time, it’s one of our jobs, mine and Peters, is to come in and make sure the DCU is connected in film, television, gaming, and animation, that the characters are consistent, played by the same actors, and it works within one story. And if something is outside of that, like Matt Reeves Batman or Todd Phillips’ Joker or Teen Titans Go, that is clearly labeled as DC Elseworlds, outside of the mainstream DCU continuity.
Peter and I have gotten pretty lucky in terms of the four projects that are coming out over the next year. First, we have Shazam: Fury of the Gods. Shazam has always been off, kind of, in his own part of the DCU, so he connects very well.
That moves directly into The Flash, a fantastic movie that I really love. That resets the entire DC Universe, and then to move into Blue Beetle, a fantastic film about a kid who’s a marvelous part of the DCU and then into Aquaman, 2, which leads directly into our next few projects, which I’m going to tell you about now.
So Peter and I, along with a group of very talented writers, have started to map out an eight to 10 year plan of what DC studios will be in film, television and gaming.
This first chapter is called Gods and Monsters. Now this, what I’m about to tell you, is a part of the first chapter. It’s not the entire first chapter.
The first project is Creature Commandos.
Creature commandos is an animated series. I’ve written all the episodes, and something we’re going to do that’s a little bit different in DC, is we’re going to have characters move into animation, out of animation, usually having the same actor play their voice as he plays them in live action.
The next project up is Waller. This is a story of Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis.
Viola Davis is going to team up with members of Team Peacemaker, and this is a story that’s been created by Crystal Henry who did Watchmen and Jeremy Carver who created the Doom Patrol.
It is a fantastic story that’s out of this world and I can’t wait for people to see it.
Okay, next up is a big one, the true beginning of the DCU. This is called Superman Legacy. This is being written by me, I’m in the middle of it, I’m having a great time doing it, and Superman will be released into theaters July 11 2025.
Okay, the next thing is a big premiere HBO television series called Lanterns. This is a story of a couple of Green Lanterns, Jon Stewart and Hal Jordan, and we have a few other Lanterns peppered in there.
But this is really a terrestrial-based TV show, which is almost like true detective with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over Precinct Earth. In it, they discover a terrifying mystery that ties into our larger story of the DCU.
Next is a big movie called The Authority.
The Authority is a passion project of mine. It’s based on the marvelous Wildstorm characters we are now bringing into the DCU and who will interact with all of our primary DCU characters.
The Authority are a group of superheroes who think the world is broken, and they want to fix it by any means necessary. I think it’s a very different look at superheroes.
Who’s News: James Gunn, Peter Safran Take Helm at DC Studios
We’re doing a television series called Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost is the story of Paradise Island, usually known as Themiscera, which is the birthplace of Wonder Woman. It’s almost like Game of Thrones with Westeros, but with all of the inhabitants of Paradise Island.
The introduction of the DCU’s Batman is The Brave and the Bold … the story of Batman and his actual son Damian Wayne. This is based on Grant Morrison’s great comic book run.
Damian Wayne is my favorite Robin. He’s a little assassin who Batman tries to get in line, and so this is the story of the two of them, and the beginning of of the bat family in the DCU.
Next up is a TV series called Booster Gold.
Booster Gold is one of comics really popular cult heroes and he is a fascinating guy. He’s a loser from the future, who uses future technology to come back to the present day and become a superhero so that people will love him. It is basically the superhero story of imposter syndrome on an HBO Max series.
One of my favorite comic book series from last year was Tom King’s run on Super Girl: Woman of Tomorrow, and so we’re going to turn that into a big, science fiction, epic film. Now Superman is a guy who was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents, where Super Girl in this story is a character who was raised on a chunk of Krypton. She watched everybody around her perish in some terrible way, so she’s a much more jaded character.
And that brings me to Swamp Thing. The last thing we’re going to talk about is a very dark horror story in the origins of the monster, who is Swamp Thing, and although it’s totally outside of the rest of the DCU, it will feed into the rest of the stories.
Anyway, those are the stories that I can tell you about right now.
I’ve loved the DC characters since I was a child, they’re incredibly important to me. I knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something very different. One of the things that’s very important for me in all of these movies and TV series is that the director’s vision and the vision of the writers and all of the creators is unique, and something special. Story telling is always King; that’s all that matters to us, and I want to be true to those stories. I want to be true to you guys, and really give you something different than you’ve ever seen before.
Anyway, thank you, everybody. I appreciate you watching. I hope this was exciting for you, because it’s really exciting for me, and I can’t wait to start to dive into these stories with you guys on this grand adventure.”