James Gunn, Peter Safran unveil DC's movie and TV slate

Stories about Batman and his assassin son, a new Superman tale and ‘Swamp Thing’ are set to hit the big screen as part of an ambitious 10-year plan to reinvigorate ‘DC Studios’ under new owner ‘Warner Bros Discovery’.

Despite a rich stable of characters, from Batman to Wonder Woman, the DC film and television studio has failed to match the success of Walt Disney Co’s ‘Marvel’ hit factory.

“The history of DC is pretty messed up,” said director James Gunn, who directed three ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movies for ‘Marvel’ and was tapped last year to revamp ‘DC Studios’. “We’re going to promise that everything from our first project forward is going to be unified.”

Gunn and ‘DC Studios’ co-chairman Peter Safran unveiled a Marvel Cinematic Universe-inspired plan to tell a single story that unfolds over eight to 10 years, through 10 upcoming film and TV projects.

The first phase, ‘Gods and Monsters’, uses some of the DC Universe’s best-known superheroes to introduce audiences to a new generation of characters. Gunn said he worked with a team of five writers to sketch out one connected story. At the same time, the studio will release stories that fall outside this central ‘DC Universe’ narrative, dubbed ‘DC Elseworlds’, as with the comic books. One example is ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’.

‘DC Studios’ will offer a spin on the familiar Superman story with ‘Superman: Legacy’, a story written by Gunn that examines how the character reconciles his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. It is slated for release on July 11, 2025. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates also is working on a script for Superman in which a black actor portrays the Man of Steel, as a ‘DC Elseworlds’ project.

Also in 2025, ‘DC Studios’ will release ‘Batman - Part II’, a darker, more adult tale that’s not part of Gunn’s newly envisioned ‘DC Universe’. ‘The Brave and the Bold’ will introduce the hero’s assassin son as his crime-fighting sidekick, Robin.

‘Lanterns’, an eight-hour detective series, is scheduled to stream on HBO Max. Other TV projects include ‘Waller’, with Viola Davis reprising her ‘Suicide Squad’ role as Amanda Waller and ‘Paradise Lost’, the origin story of Themyscira, the island where Wonder Woman was born. A television series, ‘Creature Commandos’, in which Waller forms a black ops team out of monstrous prisoners, is in production.