There has been a lot of news from DC Studios in the past several days. Some of it has been great, some of it has been less than great, and some of it is somewhere in the No Man’s Land of interpretation and opinion that lies between the two. Some of it is a bit concerning when it comes to how this universe is coming together. Ideally, this universe will mimic what happens in the comics with standalone stories, crossovers, and huge Crisis style events. We don’t want a carbon copy of the MCU, but they are both based in comic books.
Let’s quickly go over some of the news recently broken.
Matt Reeves still hasn’t finished the script for The Batman which isn’t entirely surprising considering the huge delay. Gunn said it’s “not the plan” to have Pattinson become the DCU’s Dark Knight, but they clearly haven’t ruled it out entirely. The Brave and the Bold is in active development, but that doesn’t mean much as it’s been in active development for quite a long time. Gunn said it’s possible that Batman could appear in a different DCU project before his own even though they haven’t cast anyone as the Caped Crusader yet. Clayface has once again been confirmed to be a body horror movie that someone not interested in superhero content could watch and enjoy. Gunn and Safran seem to be contradicting each other to appease the fans who want standalone projects and the fans who want crossovers. Waller seems to have hit a brick wall, The Authority has seen very little to no progress, Swamp Thing doesn’t seem to have made much progress, and Booster Gold has actually backtracked. They had a showrunner, but that person has dropped out. However, on the upside of things, Teen Titans is moving forward with the Ana Nogueira writing the script. Safran also cryptically said that Matthew Orton is working on something similar to a Deathstroke/Bane story, but seemed to imply that story doesn’t exist.
If you want more detail, you can read CBM’s more in depth coverage here and here.
Clearly, things aren’t as organized as they could be over there at DC Studios. To me, all the news could be paraphrased as Gunn and Safran saying, “I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.” It seems to be a bit of a chaotic start for DC Studios, but maybe there is a reason for it.
Gunn has stated before that projects will not be greenlit without having a script attached to them first. It’s an interesting strategy, and the benefits of it are clear. Projects won’t end up in development hell like Marvel’s Blade reboot that may or may not happen or The Flash which resulted in a less than stellar project with a few bright spots.
To the best of my knowledge, Gunn first said that projects will not be greenlit without a script about a year ago on his Threads account and has reiterated it countless times since. At the time, I thought that statement contradicted his actions of announcing a large slate of movies and shows. Superman (at the time, Superman: Legacy), The Brave and the Bold, Swamp Thing, Paradise Lost, Waller, Lanterns, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Booster Gold, and The Authority were all announced as the first slate of the DCU’s first chapter, Gods and Monsters. I swear I remember Gunn saying there would be more announcements to come soon after those, but I can find no evidence of that.
When Gunn announced the projects, none of them had a script. Clearly, this is a rule that he instituted after beginning to design an overarching universe. Now, six out of the nine projects initially announced have made very little to no progress.
This indicates that Gunn’s strategy of only greenlighting projects that have a completed script may actually be the way to go for DC. When it was announced, there were a lot of critics of the idea. Of course, there were those that thought it was a great idea from the start, but many fans questioned how a cinematic universe spanning movies and TV could be formed with an ultimate goal of bringing those characters together without some sort of preplanned slate of movies that have finite timelines for their release. Well, these recent announcements exemplify the problem with doing that.
If an executive announces a movie because that movie needs to happen so that a larger story is progressed, then no progress is made because the script isn’t ready, that stalls that larger, overarching story. This then leads to rushed, below quality products. Maybe it’s simply better to let that overarching story unfold naturally as writers bring in excellent scripts. Once enough of the world has been built, Gunn himself could step in and insert whatever movie needs to happen for the overarching story to progress.
Personally, I haven’t had a lot of faith in Gunn at DC, but these recent announcements all seem to indicate his strategy is at least partially working.
What do you think about everything happening at DC recently? Let me know in the comments!