Superhero casting and media/fan reactions put DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran and their planned rebooted of the company’s superhero franchises in the spotlight this week. Of particular interest is which two DCU projects will move forward in the next two months, something Gunn said would happen in a statement he released Wednesday celebrating the one-year anniversary of his and Safran’s announced slate of new films and streaming series.
Gunn is about to start production on the first feature film of the new DCU, Superman: Legacy, which Gunn wrote and directs. Of the remaining projects, which are most likely to be the next two getting underway?
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is fast-tracked, with a script from Ana Nogueira and lead actress Milly Alcock cast in the title role, and fits neatly into the early stages of setting up the DCU (especially if Supergirl winds up introduced in Superman: Legacy). A director will be announced imminently, too. Which makes this film mostly likely to be one of the two additional DCU movies expected to move forward in the next couple of months.
So, besides Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, that leaves one other DCU project moving forward sometime by April or soon after. What will it be? We can rule out several contenders right of the bat…
We know it’s not Superman: Legacy, since Gunn is talking specifically about two additional projects besides those already announced. Nor can it be Creature Commandos, the first season of which is nearly completed already (as Gunn mentioned in his Wednesday statement).
It’s not Peacemaker season 2, because Gunn said he won’t start that until he’s done with Superman: Legacy. And it’s probably not the Arkham Asylum project for WBD’s streaming service Max, because that one underwent repeated evolutions and changes, including transitioning from Matt Reeves’ The Batman cinematic world into a DCU project, so it could still need more work before it’s ready to move forward.
Additionally, Reeves is working on The Penguin series for Max, and is getting ready to move ahead with The Batman Part II, so it could be difficult for him to oversee a DCU project soon.
Which leaves us with six named projects to consider: The Brave and the Bold, Swamp Thing, The Authority, Paradise Lost, Booster Gold, Lanterns, and Waller.
The Brave and the Bold and Swamp Thing have directors attached already (Andy Muschietti and James Mangold, respectively), and are probably both going to get moving soon.
Batman and his extended bat-family cast of allies, sidekicks, and villains is (regardless of how you may or may not feel about this fact) of immense foundational importance to the DCU and its early success.
With the aforementioned Max spinoff series Arkham Asylum likely waiting to go into production until this first introduction of the Batman world gets underway, that adds to the sense The Brave and the Bold will ramp up relatively soon. Casting is about to commence, too, which is another solid sign we could be in for news on this one soon.
Swamp Thing is harder to be sure of, since there’s no word yet on how far along a screenplay might be (Mangold is writing the script), but it’s been about nine months since we got confirmation of Mangold’s plans, so I won’t be surprised to see this updated and potentially moving forward soon.
The Authority has a script either completed or close to it, and might be close enough to ready that it could move to the next phases soon. That said, without a director attached and with so many other examples of edgy superhero teams — The Boys being the most popular current example — I’m not sure Gunn and Safran would fast track this one to be an early DCU release.
On the other hand, I have a sneaking suspicion Superman and The Authority will be meeting up, and this makes me wonder if perhaps they will show up earlier than we might expect. The potential crossover with Superman would likely involve a high-stakes situation and might be part of the larger DCU overarching story, and whether or not this means we’d see it introduced so soon — and in a way involving Superman and The Authority linking up over it, if my suspicion there is right — is questionable.
Wonder Woman is another foundational character for DC and will play a huge role in the success of the DCU, so the streaming Max prequel series Paradise Lost could be a necessary early project to get into production soon. That said, we’ve not had any updates on this one for a while, and there could be a sense at the studio that director Patty Jenkins’ DCEU Wonder Woman films and star Gal Gadot’s popularity with audiences and fans makes it smarter to delay any effort to move too quickly on wiping that particular slate clean.
Booster Gold is a character who’s had a few stops and starts project-wise, but the planned DCU comedy series for Max hasn’t had any updates in a while, and the past struggle to bring the character to the screen — big or small — might suggest it’s taking longer to land on something everyone feels is the best final choice for Booster Gold.
Lanterns brings us back to projects that I feel have more likelihood of going into production sooner than later. While we haven’t heard updates in a while and Green Lantern would-be projects have tended to linger and go through a lot of various creative teams and ideas, this one is part of the setup for the overarching DCU story that ties the characters and stories together.
The fact Lanterns involves a mystery storyline involving the Lanterns acting as space-cops suggests they’ll uncover the first clues and elements of whatever comes to plague the DCU’s superheroes in a larger way. So this is the sort of thing that might necessarily be an early project in establishing the DCU.
But it’s Waller I’m betting on as the second project Gunn was referring to, assuming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was indeed the other one.
Gunn has said clearly that Waller is positioned between Superman: Legacy and season 2 of Peacemaker, the latter of which will probably enter production later this year or sometime early next year. Gunn is about to start filming Legacy in March, and I believe Waller will get underway with pre-production by around April.
What all of this suggests to me is this: Superman: Legacy shoots starting in March; Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow speeds up pre-production work with lots more announcements and a completed script in the next couple of months; Waller gets casting announcements and starts moving by April as well; The Brave and the Bold starts casting calls by early summer, with filming perhaps in 2025; Peacemaker season 2 begins production in the back half of this year; and Lanterns and Swamp Thing pre-productions get moving in the first half in 2025, while The Authority and Paradise Lost go into production in the second half of that year.
Arkham Asylum and Booster Gold are the projects I’m the least sure about in terms of when to expect them, except to say that Arkham Asylum will probably want to release sometime in 2026 to ride the coattails of The Brave and the Bold as well as maintaining an annual bat-family project released each year. I lean toward thinking we’ll see Arkham Asylum get underway next year, depending on how it lines up with Matt Reeves’ schedule for The Batman Part II production.
Booster Gold has had the least said about it, and from the little we’ve heard it feels like it’s going to be the least consequential in terms of establishing the DCU’s larger framework and story arc. He’s a fan-favorite and a comedic corner for the DCU, and to me that means the project’s place in the timeline of releases will probably take the tonal balance of releases into account. Translation: Don’t compete with Peacemaker’s role as DCU comedy series while it’s airing. So Booster Gold almost certainly wouldn’t release in 2025, so it won’t need to get underway for a while.
This structure fits with the DCU’s announced release plans for two films and two streaming series per year. It also avoids having too many projects underway simultaneously, which would jack up studio spending at precisely a time when they’re trying to get costs under control and put their rebooted superhero films into a contracting marketplace that’s been immensely hostile to DC properties lately.
Again, this is my best guesswork at the moment, so I don’t expect to be right about most of this in terms of any precise timing. But I do feel confident about my predictions of which two projects Gunn referred to as “gearing up to go in the next couple of months.” And I think generally speaking, it’s probably true that the projects with directors attached will be ready to get underway faster as well, while something like Booster Gold seems less urgent in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, the officially announced projects so far aren’t the only DCU productions that will exist in Gunn’s and Safran’s “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters” phase. They’ve said additional projects can and will be added to the lineup eventually. So while I feel pretty safe betting on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow as one of the two Gunn meant in his remarks, maybe the other one will be something completely new and unexpected.
I doubt that’s the case, since I’d expect them to move forward with their primary 10 announced projects first, at least at this most early stage of the DCU’s development. Any unannounced later additions to the lineup would come later as things take more shape, I’m betting.
This is all speculation, with lots of rumors floating around as usual, and Gunn has previously said in replies to online fan questions that plans and schedules got shifted around last year amid the Hollywood studios’ extended refusal to negotiate new contracts with the guilds for months. Some projects got delayed, some were possibly moved around in the production line, and new previously unannounced projects have come up. Which means much is uncertain, and as Gunn and Safran said all along, films and series will enter production only when they’re ready, not forced to meet release dates.
Hopefully we’ll hear some more updates and official announcements soon, including lots more casting and production updates for Superman: Legacy, as well as more casting and details about Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
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