While James Gunn is being extremely open about his plans for the DCU, those plans seem…a bit all over the place and across a range of projects that keep starting and stopping and focusing on surprising characters across a number of PG-13 and R-rated projects. It’s a bit hard to keep track of, and this entire thing probably needs a breakdown based on what we’ve seen and what Gunn keeps telling us. So, the DCU:
- The DCU did not start off with Superman, but Creature Commandos, an R-rated animated series about a monster-like Suicide Squad that featured Rick Flagg Sr. Gunn has said that all DCU projects, unless otherwise specified, are canon to the DCU, and this one is.
- The same Rick Flagg jumped over to the blockbuster start of the DCU, Superman, a well-liked introduction to the new hero, albeit a signifier of the flagging superhero box office, crossing $600 million when that’s far less than many much worse DCEU projects made.
- Superman introduced Supergirl, which will be next year’s big movie project. Then after that, Man of Tomorrow, a quasi-Superman sequel that was never originally stated to exist when Gunn laid out the initial DCU projects, but now he says he’s already finished the script just a few months after Superman wrapped.
- Gunn has implied that one project he originally was pushing, The Authority, is mostly dead now. Similarly, a Teen Titans movie that Supergirl’s Ana Nogueira was writing has been put on hold in favor of a newly announced Wonder Woman movie.
- The immediate DCU follow-up to Superman is the second season of Gunn’s Peacemaker show on HBO, an extremely mature-rated production that featured an actual orgy in its first episode, so getting Superman viewers over to that could prove…problematic, despite crossover characters. Gunn flat-out retconned Peacemaker to always be a part of the DCU, and has been hyping the last few episodes as massively important for the DCU and a must-watch. Again, going from Superman to this is…jarring for many.
- It’s not clear just how much of Gunn’s Suicide Squad movie he’s keeping canon, saying things like it’s an “imperfect” recollection of events. Things like Peacemaker’s involvement and his killing of Rick Flagg Jr. have stayed. He’s said he wants to bring Bloodsport back. We have no real idea if Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn may return.
- Gunn has simply plucked Blue Beetle out of the DCEU and has made him canon in the DCU. He’s hinted he may show up in Peacemaker.
- The True Detective-ish Lanterns is heading to HBO in a bit, featuring the rather ridiculous Guy Gardner briefly in what will be a more serious tale.
- The Batman situation is that it seems pretty clear that Robert Pattinson’s The Batman will not join the DCU as its Batman, even if Gunn previously said “never say never” about that idea. More recently he’s said that the actual DCU announced Batman project, The Brave and the Bold, is coming along, though he has not mentioned The Flash director Andy Muschietti and all for a long while, causing many to wonder if he’s still attached. Additionally, we have a currently-filming Clayface movie that was allegedly originally part of The Batman universe before it was moved over. And this is supposed to be the same Clayface that was played for laughs in Creature Commandos, given its canon status.
Is all this…bad? Honestly it’s hard to say. The only things actually released right now are Creature Commandos, Superman and a season and a half of Peacemaker. And I guess Blue Beetle. It is not wise to underestimate James Gunn when it comes to superhero projects, as he has never made a bad one, but questions remain about how things will go when he’s not actually writing and directing these projects, and if audiences will be able to follow along through charming Superman movies and bloody, sexy TV shows like Peacemaker and Creature Commandos, if they’re all connected. It’s going to be an interesting experiment, that’s for sure.
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