Yesterday evening brought some shocking news on the DC movies front, just four months after Batgirl was surprisingly scrapped. Along with Wonder Woman 3 reportedly being shelved in “its current incarnation,” it was also said that DC is mulling shuttering the DCEU continuity in favor of starting a new shared universe, among numerous other claims. Now James Gunn, the new co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios, has responded to this cancellation news and the other reported shakeups.
After making The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker (both of which can be watched with an HBO Max subscription), James Gunn is now co-running the newly-created DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, meaning that with a few exceptions, these two are steering the ship on DC Comics’ film, television and animation projects. So if anyone’s qualified to comment on the state of the upcoming DC movies slate, it’s Gunn. Here’s what the filmmaker had to say on Twitter regarding yesterday’s news:
So. As for the story yesterday in the Hollywood Reporter, some of it is true, some of it is half-true, some of it is not true, & some of it we haven’t decided yet whether it’s true or not. Although this first month at DC has been fruitful, building the next ten years of story takes time & we’re still just beginning. Peter & I chose to helm DC Studios knowing we were coming into a fractious environment, both in the stories being told & in the audience itself & there would be an unavoidable transitional period as we moved into telling a cohesive story across film, TV, animation, and gaming. But, in the end, the drawbacks of that transitional period were dwarfed by the creative possibilities & the opportunity to build upon what has worked in DC so far & to help rectify what has not. We know we are not going to make every single person happy every step of the way, but we can promise everything we do is done in the service of the STORY & in the service of the DC CHARACTERS we know you cherish and we have cherished our whole lives. As for more answers about the future of the DCU, I will sadly have to ask you to wait. We are giving these characters & the stories the time & attention they deserve & we ourselves still have a lot more questions to ask & answer.
James Gunn wasn’t willing to delve into specifics, but evidently some of what THR shared last night is true, while other parts either simply weren’t or didn’t present the whole picture. Reading between the lines though, it sounds like Gunn is saying that sweeping changes are coming to the DC media landscape, and while not everyone is going to be pleased with what’s coming, Gunn and Peter Safran feel that working with as clean a slate as possible will ultimately allow them to deliver the best onscreen DC stories possible. For now, the public will have to wait on what specifically all this will entail.
Among the other notable items presented in the big THR article was that despite Henry Cavill teasing that we’d be seeing more of him as Superman following his cameo in the Black Adam end-credits scene, apparently this isn’t as set in stone as we thought. Jason Momoa, a.k.a. the DCEU’s Aquaman, is also reportedly a “pivotal figure” regarding James Gunn and Peter Safran deciding what’s next for DC. One scenario being explored is that if the current DCEU continuity is tossed aside, Momoa would still stick around and transition into playing the alien bounty hunter Lobo. Furthermore, whatever big DC changes coming are not expected to affect Matt Reeves fleshing out his The Batman-centric universe, at least for now.
These are the early days of figuring out how James Gunn and Peter Safran plan to revitalize DC media, so keep checking back with CinemaBlend for concrete details about what they have in store. You can keep occupied in the meantime by watching the DC movies in order.
