The Authority was first published by DC Comics under the Wildstorm imprint in 1999. Created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, they're a team that gets the job done by any means necessary (their extreme methods care little for politics and law).
Boasting an eclectic cast of characters, the team is one that's bound to appear to filmmaker James Gunn's sensibilities given his work on franchises like Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad, and Creature Commandos. The prevailing theory is that he may even be the one to write and direct the project.
It's been a while since we've heard anything about The Authority, though there was some chatter last November about it becoming an animated movie instead of a live-action one.
Today, scooper @MyTimeToShineH has backed up reports that The Authority movie is being "reworked." There's no mention of whether that includes a switch to animation but the movie has clearly undergone an evolution since first being announced by DC Studios in January 2023.
You may recall that, in September 2023, a rumour surfaced claiming the team's lineup will feature Sam Worthington as Midnighter, Alexander Skarsgård as Apollo, Kiera Knightley as Jenny Sparks, Gerard Butler as Jack Hawksmoor, Keke Palmer as the Engineer, and Riz Ahmed as the Doctor.
As for The Authority's villain, Ken Watanabe was named as being a likely contender for Kaizen Gamorra. The dictator of the island nation of Gamorra, which he named after himself, Kaizen often came into conflict with StormWatch (a precursor to The Authority).
At this stage, it's fair to say there probably wasn't any truth to that, especially as there's been no obvious movement on the movie nearly 18 months later (had those roles been cast, the trades would have gotten wind of it by now).
"The Authority are a group of superheroes who think the world is broken, and they want to fix it by any means necessary," Gunn previously explained. "I think it’s a very different look at superheroes."
He'd add that The Authority "will interact with all of our primary DCU characters," suggesting they'll be front and centre in future stories. That's evident from The Engineer's presence in Superman, though the team may not be a thing at this point given her apparent alliance with Lex Luthor.
Gunn has also said, "The Authority is a very different kind of superhero story. They are basically good intention, but they think that the world is completely broken and the only way to fix it is to take things into their own hands, whether that means killing people, destroying heads of state, changing governments, whatever they want to do to make the world better."
"And we’ll see how that journey goes for them," he continued. "But as I said earlier, there’s morally gray characters of which these are."
Stay tuned for updates on The Authority as we have them.