James Gunn Casts Doubt Over the Fate of the DCU Despite “Significant” Plans

While the first wave of DCU content has been in flux from the moment that James Gunn announced his “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters” slate of DC films and TV shows, he has continued to profess that he has always had an end goal in mind, even if some of the steps along the way change. That has happened significantly in the last two years, with movies like Swamp Thing and The Authority giving way to Clayface and Man of Tomorrow. During an appearance on BobaTalks, Gunn emphasized that Man of Tomorrow is not where the plans end, but did so with the impression that things could change due to decisions beyond his control.

“Yes, they definitely go significantly further than Man of Tomorrow. So whether or not that’ll be me that’s able to fulfil that promise depends on a lot of things in life.”

The biggest factor in all of this is the potential sale of Warner Bros. to a new owner. With Comcast and Netflix among those looking to potentially take control of the iconic studio, new management could have their own ideas about what to do with their newly acquired DC content, and that may not be exactly the same as Gunn’s vision. For now, all of that is up in the air, but it could end up making Gunn’s current plans null and void at the drop of a hat.

Could DC Studios Be Overhauled Again?

When James Gunn and Peter Safran were installed as the co-CEOs of the newly minted DC Studios, it seemed that a 10-year plan for the DCU was being put in place, and it was assumed that the pair would be in charge of things going forward for at least that length of time.

Although Superman was a box office success compared to some of the recent DC releases by Warner Bros., it was a long way from being a billion-dollar success. Movies are not able to crack the sacred milestone as often as they could several years ago, a point hammered home with Marvel Studios’ inability to get more than a couple of their movies beyond $1 billion in the last few years.

However, that kind of audience behavior, which seems to include people now being willing to wait for a movie to hit streaming several months after its cinema release rather than rushing to see it on the big screen, is not likely to change, regardless of who is in charge of the DC brand. Superman should be one of the biggest draws of the comic book characters owned by the company, but his solo cinema outings have never been able to hit the level of Marvel superheroes. Batman, on the other hand, can pull quite a crowd, and it will be interesting to see how both The Batman Part II and The Brave and the Bold turn out in the coming years, by which time the fate of the DCU may finally have been settled beyond doubt.