DC Studios launches an ambitious new universe of film and television

The new heads of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran, have revealed their plans for a revamped and newly unified DC Universe of movies and TV series.

Dubbed “Chapter 1” of a decade-long planned DCU storyline, the slate included a new Superman movie in 2025 that won’t star Henry Cavill, a Batman movie that won’t star Robert Pattinson, and a Swamp Thing origin movie.

In total, Gunn and Safran laid out plans for five new movies and five new TV series in a presentation Tuesday, outlining their bid to bring cohesion and fresh creativity to the DCU after years of on-and-off success and some much-maligned flops.

Last year, Warner Bros. scrapped its $190 million Batgirl movie, which starred Leslie Grace, with Gunn and Safran calling the decision “bold” because it was “unreleaseable.”

“It wouldn’t have been able to compete in the theatrical market, it was built for the small screen,” Safran said. Variety.

Gunn and Safran’s DCU slate will launch with Superman: Legacy on July 11, 2025, described as a Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.

“DC history is pretty messy,” said Gunn, who previously directed the Guardians of the Galaxy films for rival Marvel Studios, and was tapped last year to revamp DC Studios along with veteran producer Safran.

“We are going to promise that everything from our first project onwards will come together,” he added.

The first chapter of the new DCU, called ‘Gods and Monsters’, uses some of the best-known superheroes in the DC Universe to introduce audiences to a new generation of characters. Gunn said that he worked with a team of five writers to outline a connected story.

The first phase will launch after several legacy projects debuting over the next two years, including The Flash, with Ezra Miller, which Gunn said “resets the entire DC Universe.”

Gunn remained cryptic about Miller’s future in the DCU following the actor’s guilty plea in a home invasion case earlier this month, saying “nothing prohibits” previously cast actors from reprising their roles in the new universe, according to hollywood reporter.

Gunn and Safran’s DCU slate will launch with Superman: Legacy on July 11, 2025, which Gunn is writing, and is depicted as Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.

Casting has yet to be announced, though Henry Cavill left the role despite a recent cameo in 2022’s Black Adam, a sequel also not part of Gunn and Safran’s plans despite passionate lobbying from Dwayne Johnson.

An in-universe Batman movie is also coming at an unknown date: The Brave and the Bold, a Batman and Robin story inspired by Grant Morrison’s comic book series, centering on Batman’s son with supervillain Talia al-Ghul as Robin.

Another movie planned is The Authority, about a group of superheroes with extreme methods.

Also coming is Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, based on the Tom King comics, and a big-screen standalone Swamp Thing movie.

TV plans include Lanterns, an eight-hour detective series, scheduled to air 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.

The DCU reboot also includes an animated TV series, Creature Commandos, in which Waller forms a black ops team with monstrous prisoners, is in production.

An unaired in-universe Batman movie will also arrive at an unknown date: The Brave and the Bold, a Batman and Robin story centering on the son of Batman with supervillain Talia al-Ghul as Robin.

TV plans include Lanterns, an eight-hour live-action detective series featuring multiple Green Lanterns, scheduled to air on HBO Max.

Another movie planned is The Authority, about a group of superheroes with extreme methods.

At the same time, the studio will be releasing stories that fall outside of this central DC Universe narrative, dubbed DC Elseworlds, as it is with the comics. One example is Joker: Folie a Deux, the sequel to the 2019 Oscar-nominated drama.

Robert Pattinson’s Batman will also return in Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II, set for release on October 3, 2025, another Elseworlds movie outside of the main continuity.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is also working on a script for a Superman project in which a black actor plays the man of steel, like a DC Elseworlds project.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav hopes to reap the financial rewards of a reinvigorated DC franchise.

Shares of the media company have fallen 43 percent in the past year as the company aims to generate $3 billion in savings by combining Warner Media and Discovery Communications.

“The stakes are high,” said Safran, who has produced two “Aquaman” movies and two “Shazam” movies. “It’s a brand that was in some turmoil, and it’s an opportunity to build an extraordinary independent studio.”

Live-action shows for HBO Max include Waller starring Viola Davis (left) returning as Suicide Squad mastermind Amanda Waller (right, from the comics)

Swamp Thing will get a big screen independent horror film as part of the first phase

While Marvel has become the highest-grossing film franchise in history, DC Studios has had mixed results.

A dark “Joker” movie became an Oscar nominee and a billion-dollar hit, but “Black Adam” and “Justice League” struggled to generate superhero-sized returns.

Four DC film projects that were completed before Gunn and Safran took over the studio will be released in theaters this year: Shazam! The Fury of the Gods, Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Zaslav cut some costs by scrapping plans for a third Wonder Woman movie and a $190 million Batgirl movie that was headed for streaming. The film division has also cut marketing and distribution jobs.

Safran said that the film had “a lot of incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera” but was “unreleaseable”.

“In fact, I think Zaslave and the team made a very bold and courageous decision to cancel it because it would have hurt DC. It would have hurt the people involved,’ he said. Variety.

“It wouldn’t have been able to compete in the theatrical market, it was built for the small screen. So again, I think it wasn’t an easy decision, but they made the right decision to archive it.’