The DCEU is dead, long live the DCU! The Suicide Squad director James Gunn and Aquaman producer Peter Safran are teaming up to take charge of DC Studios for Warner Bros. Discovery, and they, along with CEO David Zaslav, addressed company employees in a virtual town hall yesterday evening.
We know Zaslav wants to make the DC brand every bit as popular and successful as the MCU, and Safran reiterated recent comments from Gunn about their plans to tell one big story across a slate of projects.
"This was such a unique opportunity to tell one great overarching story," he said (via The Hollywood Reporter). "One beautiful big story across film, television gaming, live-action, and animation." Gunn added that they've started work on that before revealing how far into the future they're currently mapping out this shared world.
"The opportunity to make DC as great as it can be and as it should be - that is the reason why I’m doing this job because I know that Peter and I can do that," the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker told those in attendance.
"We spent the past couple days with a group of some of the best thinkers in the industry, the best writers in the industry starting to map out that eight to 10-year plan of what it’s going to look like in theater, in TV, in animation, across the board for these characters.”
While no new projects were mentioned, Safran shared his love of Aquaman and Shazam, while Gunn mentioned characters like Batman, Superman, The Metal Men, and Bat-mite.
It's clear now that a real plan is being put in place, something fans have wanted ever since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were shown to have various connective tissue way back in 2016. Since then, the DCU has been largely standalone in nature, with some cameos and crossovers, but no clear plan as to where these stories are going.
How excited are you for this new era of the DCU?