The last gasps of the Snyderverse, Battinson's second outing, and the glorious return of the Man
of Steel. As DC turns to a new chapter, which of these upcoming movies are you most excited to see?
For a moment, it really looked like Henry Cavill was coming back for Man of Steel 2. After leaving
The Witcher and making a cameo appearance in Black Adam, Cavill was all set to don the cape and get
back to fighting crime. However, after James Gunn and Peter Safran took over the newly named DCU,
Man of Steel 2 was quickly scrapped and Cavill was retired from the role of Superman.
So what's in store for Superman in the all-new DC Universe? Well,
Gunn and Safran announced their initial slate of DCU projects on January 31st,
2023, and the biggest film in the works is Superman: Legacy.
"Next up is the big one, the true beginning of the DCU."
Gunn wrote the film and Safran is hoping to get him to direct — and it is, apparently,
not another superhero origin story. Safran said:
"It focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his
human upbringing. He is kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned."
Casting remains unknown on Superman: Legacy, which is scheduled to hit movie theaters on July 11th,
2025. We also know that it will kick off the first chapter of the new DCU,
which Gunn and Safran have given the name "Gods & Monsters."
Warner Bros. and DC Comics know they've got one of the most lucrative franchises of all time
with Batman and his vast world of side characters, villains, settings, and lore. To that end, Warner
has multiple Batman-based movies in the works that are pretty much entirely separate from each other.
In addition to the Birds of Prey offshoot Black Canary and Joker and its sequel, there's 2022's
The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as a nascent Dark Knight. The cast, and co-writer-director
Matt Reeves, did such a good job establishing this new Batman world that Warner Bros. grew
keen on expanding it. The movie's $770 million box office haul probably didn't hurt, either.
The expansion of Reeves' Bat-verse will begin with the HBO series The Penguin,
with Colin Farrell reprising his titular role. Meanwhile, Reeves is actively conceptualizing
The Batman Part II, which is set to be released on October 3rd, 2025 — but it
won't be part of the DCU proper. Instead, Part II will be labeled a DC Elseworlds project,
allowing it to exist in its own world, far away from the rest of the DC Universe.
Henry Cavill's Superman might be consigned to the history books, but that's not going
to stop DC from mining as much creative potential out of Kal-El as they possibly can.
Aside from Gunn's own movie, the studio is producing an Elseworlds project from
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Here's what we know so far: Coates, known for his powerful
social journalism and comic book runs with Black Panther and Captain America,
is penning the script. J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are attached to the film on the production side,
but Abrams isn't in the running to direct. Instead, DC and Warner Bros. are looking for both
a Black director and a Black lead actor for the film. Sadly, nobody has been confirmed just yet.
As far as the film's plot, The Hollywood Reporter has claimed that it might be
a "20th-century period piece," and that Coates' version of Superman is
"a Kal-El in the vein of the original Superman comics." Obviously, though,
these are early days, and recent comments made by Gunn suggested that DC has yet to
see a finished script from Coates. For now, you'll just have to keep your eyes on the sky.
Yes, it's finally happening: Kara Zor-El is set for her big solo cinematic project. Supergirl:
Woman of Tomorrow was another movie announced by
Gunn and Safran in January 2023. Based on the eponymous comic book run by Tom King,
Woman of Tomorrow will revolve around a dark, space-based sci-fi revenge story.
"She watched everybody around her perish in some terrible way,
so she is a much more jaded character."
King himself has been assisting Gunn in developing this project, although we're
unsure who will play the darker, harder version of the character. In the upcoming Flash movie,
Sasha Calle will appear as Supergirl, having beat out hundreds of others for the role;
Gunn and Safran have yet to say whether or not Calle would reprise the part in Woman of Tomorrow,
however, and a full reboot and a recast certainly isn't out of the question.
Expect to hear more about Supergirl's future in the coming weeks and months.
Today, WildStorm is an edgy imprint of DC Comics, but it began life back in the 20th
century as an independent publisher, best known for the superhero team-up
title Stormwatch. After a while, Stormwatch morphed into the 1999 spinoff The Authority,
which was released after DC absorbed WildStorm and incorporated its characters into its own
narrative canon. In 2023, James Gunn and Peter Safran announced that a standalone
film based on the comic series would be one of their first priorities as heads of the DCU.
Something of a rogue Justice League, the Authority boasts a revolving membership
including such characters as the electric Jenny Sparks, the liquid metal-based Engineer,
the magical Doctor, and the shadowy Midnighter. During the reveal of the new slate, Gunn said:
"One of the things with the DCU is it isn't just a story of heroes and
villains and not every movie and TV show is going to be about good guy versus bad guy."
Apparently, that moral gray area will be where the DCU Authority operates.
"There are people that are anti-heroes, and there are people that are very questionable,
like the Authority, who basically believe that you can't fix the world
in an easy manner, and they sort of take things into their own hands."
In other words, if the Authority think they can solve a problem, they'll do it — no matter how
violent, controversial, or devastating their decisions. DC haven't announced a release date
for The Authority yet, but it's due to arrive in the "Gods & Monsters" chapter of the new DCU.
As heads of the DCU, James Gunn and Peter Safran are faced with the tricky proposition
of balancing multiple Batmans across different narrative timelines. For example, filmmaker Todd
Phillips will continue to tell the story of Dark Knight adjacent villain the Joker with Joker:
Folie à Deux, and Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson will release their sequel to The Batman.
Basically, there's a whole lot of Batmanning going on in DC's future — but that's not all.
In January 2023, Gunn and Safran announced yet another Batman project:
the official one — the Caped Crusader of record.
"Damian Wayne is my favorite Robin, he's a little assassin who Batman
tries to get in line, so this is the story of the two of them."
Based on Grant Morrison's comics series of the same name, The Brave and the Bold
is part father-son drama, part superhero story,
and part crime extravaganza. Aside from Damian Wayne, Safran has said
that we can expect to see other members of Batman's family appear, telling the media:
"We feel like they've been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long."
Before he was appointed one of the guardians of the DCU,
and before he brought the Guardians of Galaxy to the big screen, James Gunn
was known for making humor-laced cult horror movies. Decades later, it looks like Gunn is
going back to his roots. As part of the new slate of DCU projects, Gunn announced that a
new Swamp Thing movie was in pre-production as part of the studio's "Gods & Monsters" chapter.
In the 1980s, the DC Comics character headlined two campy, low-budget films, and in 2019,
a Swamp Thing TV series lasted a single season. The story concerns
kind-hearted botanist Dr. Alec Holland, who is accidentally transformed into a massive
green swamp creature and decides to fight bad guys. Gunn and cohort Peter Safran plan to go
back to square one with Swamp Thing and explore the character's "dark origins."
So who will direct? Well, these are still early days,
but Deadline has reported that Logan and Indiana Jones director James Mangold is
in talks to helm the upcoming horror movie. It doesn't have a release date yet either,
but horror fans can rest easy knowing that Swamp Thing is right around the corner.
Having gained plenty of superhero experience during the events of his 2019 solo vehicle,
young Billy Batson will be ready to take on some new bad guys in the sequel,
Shazam! Fury of the Gods. And he'll have a little help this time around. At the end of Shazam!,
Billy was able to defeat Doctor Sivana by sharing his powers with his foster family,
transforming them into Shazam-like heroes who will have a significant role to play in the sequel.
So who will Billy Batson and his foster siblings face this time around? Well,
it looks like the Daughters of Atlas are ticked off at the Shazamily for using the
power of the gods for their own crime-fighting purposes. So Oscar-winner Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu,
and Rachel Zegler are coming to wreak havoc as Hespera, Kalypso, and Athena. Based on the
trailers we've seen, it looks like once they get their hands on a powerful weapon, they'll be able
to drain Shazam and his family of their superhero powers, giving the goddesses a major edge.
Of course, the first Shazam! was a heck of a lot of fun, but we all know that superhero
sequels tend to go darker. It stands to reason, then, that young Billy is going to have some
growing up to do in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The sequel is released on March 17th, 2023.
The long-awaited solo film for the Flash has been cooking since long before his DCEU debut.
A long list of writers and directors signed onto and departed the project over the years,
and the movie's progress was only hindered by Ezra Miller's bizarre crime spree across what
seemed like the entire United States. Nevertheless, the movie is nearly here,
mostly thanks to the steady hand of It director Andy Muschietti.
The Flash will take its narrative cues from the iconic "Flashpoint" storyline,
bringing together various DC properties under one mind-bogglingly complex multiverse. Expect
to see the return of Michael Keaton's Batman and the debut of Sasha Calle's Supergirl in
the new movie — although rumors suggest that previously filmed appearances from Ben Affleck,
Gal Gadot, and Jason Momoa may have been cut from the final product.
"Oh, wow, they really just vanish, huh? Oh, that's rude."
Recently, James Gunn has said that The Flash is one of the greatest superhero movies ever
made and revealed that it will help reset the entire DC universe. Interestingly, before Gunn
and Peter Safran took over the franchise, it was reported that DC and Warner were already taking
steps toward a sequel. While Gunn has expressed his desire to work with Muschietti in the future,
it's currently unknown what role, if any, Barry Allen will play in the new regime.
The Blue Beetle moniker has been taken up by a few different characters in the comics,
but the upcoming Blue Beetle film will focus on the most recent: Jaime Reyes. In his comics,
Reyes discovers the Blue Beetle Scarab entirely by accident and takes it home.
The artifact swiftly bonds with him and grants him an extraterrestrial suit of armor and a slew of
powers to go with it. He's been part of several different superhero groups in the DC universe,
so a Blue Beetle film could easily play into several different IPs, depending
on what direction they choose to take the character — and whether he has a future at all.
Xolo Mariduena will star as the titular superhero in Blue Beetle, supported by Bruna Marquezine,
Belissa Escobedo, and Harvey Guillén. Susan Sarandon will play Victoria Kord,
a character created specifically for the film. Meanwhile, Raoul Max Trujillo [ will
be playing Carapax the Indestructible Man, a villain housed in a mighty robotic body.
Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, who wrote the 2019 crime thriller Miss Bala,
will pen the screenplay for Blue Beetle, while Angel Manuel Soto will direct,
following his work on 2020's Charm City Kings. Blue Beetle hits theaters on August 18th, 2023.
Aquaman has been the butt of pop culture jokes for decades,
owing to his seemingly lame power set. Although comic book fans knew better,
the zeitgeist simply seemed to have it in for Arthur Curry and his adventures in Atlantis.
"Did someone say cruise ship on the ocean? Why didn't you invite me?"
"Oh, to tell the fish to get out of the way? We figured it out."
"Nice one."
Meanwhile, Jason Momoa's first appearance as the character in 2017's Justice League was
received well, if not rapturously, while the movie itself underperformed severely at the box office.
But then a funny thing happened: James Wan's Aquaman, in which Momoa reprised the role,
became a smash hit, raking in over a billion dollars worldwide and becoming
the highest-grossing film in the DCEU by a comfortable margin. It didn't take long for
Warner Bros. to determine that they had a hot property on their hands, and in February 2019,
it was confirmed that a sequel was in the works. Director James Wan will be returning for Aquaman
and the Lost Kingdom, as will Momoa and much of the first movie's principal cast. Aquaman
co-screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick also worked on the script for the sequel.
Interestingly, if one of Wan's Instagram posts is anything to go by, the "Lost Kingdom" in the title
seems to refer to Necrus. This teleporting, underwater city has occasionally clashed with
Aquaman and the denizens of Atlantis in the past. Sadly, however, aside from a brief sneak
peek at DC Fandome, we've yet to see much more from Aquaman's second adventure. Even weirder,
James Gunn recently suggested that The Lost Kingdom will lead into his Superman movie
and the new DCU. Was he simply referring to the chronology of the release slate,
or did he mean that their stories could be related? Nobody knows — but we'll find out
for sure when the film splashes down in theaters on December 25th, 2023.
Rather than adapting a well-known comic storyline,
the 2019 drama Joker was inspired by the long history of Batman's greatest foe. Director and
co-writer Todd Phillips reimagined the character as Arthur Fleck, a struggling comedian suffering
a full-on emotional breakdown. As Joker earned multiple Academy Award nominations
and generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales, a sequel was always bound to happen.
In fact, mere days after Joker opened to huge box office numbers, Phillips began discussing
the future of DC Comics-based films with Warner Bros. chairman Toby Emmerich. Rumors of a
Joker sequel emerged soon after. Details were thin on the ground until June 2022,
when Phillips posted a photo of a script cover page to his Instagram account,
bearing the title Joker: Folie à Deux. Phillips also snapped a pic of Joaquin
Phoenix reading the screenplay, and we can expect to see the star return to the screen
as part two of an Elseworlds series that will exist outside of the main DC Universe.
"It's enough to make anyone crazy."
But Phoenix won't be alone here, as the one and only Lady Gaga will be making her comic
book movie debut as Harley Quinn. Apparently, she'll get to sing too, as the film is reportedly
going to be a musical set inside the imposing Arkham Asylum. And, in case you're wondering,
Folie à deux is a form of shared psychosis in which the delusions and hallucinations
experienced by one person are transferred to the other. Sound familiar? Joker: Folie à Deux began
filming on December 10th, 2022; the release date is currently set as October 4th, 2024.
The idea of a feature film based on the near-unstoppable alien bounty hunter
Lobo has been kicking around before the DCU's inception, with a Guy Ritchie-directed version
discussed as far back as 2009. The project was revived as part of the DCEU slate in 2016,
with San Andreas and Rampage director Brad Peyton set to helm from a script by Jason Fuchs,
who previously contributed to the screenplay for Wonder Woman. It was rumored in early
2018 that none other than Michael Bay was being eyed to take the reins on the movie,
and Fuchs was still reported to be working on the script.
As became a theme with DC, however, the television side of things quickly
threatened to intervene. The second season of the Syfy series Krypton saw Irish actor
Emmett J. Scanlan take on the role of Lobo, leading some observers to speculate that the
character's feature film prospects had dimmed. For a while, there was no official word from Warner,
leaving fans to wonder whether a starring vehicle for the ultra-violent baddie was
still in the cards. Things got more interesting in November 2022 when James Gunn teased a possible
Lobo project in the DCU. Soon after, rumors began to swirl that Aquaman star and devout
Lobo fan Jason Momoa could be interested in playing the character in the future.
During their DCU reveal, James Gunn and Peter Safran insisted that Momoa won't
be playing two characters at once — but they didn't shoot down the rumors, either. Safran
said that Momoa has been very clear about how much he loves Lobo, while Gunn simply said:
"We'll figure it out after Aquaman 2."