yes I'm fully aware you all want my DC movie takes
Debated whether this would be a Tumblr post or a very extended newsletter intro, until I realized 'hey this can just be its own newsletter, I did a thing about The Batman that one time'. It's that kind of radical thinking outside the box I like to believe I've cultivated an appreciation for in my distinguished, lovely audience. I'll tackle them in the order Gunn presented them, with notes about the broader scope and some bits they discussed in a Q&A at the bottom.
No familiarity with the Creature Commandoes - I had actually thought until checking just now that they were a Robert Kanigher creation! Though it seems he was one of their primary writers - but it's a perfect premise regardless and the most James Gunn pick imaginable. I'll give this a fair shake, especially with Frankenstein and Bride involved. (Though I've already seen folks raise union concerns re: the plan to carry actors across media) (Including games???)
So I really should watch Peacemaker, huh. It was on my list! Grant Morrison says it's their favorite superhero show! I was gonna get to it, I swear! Anyway they got folks from HBO Watchmen and Doom Patrol so pretty sure this one'll slap.
Ah, here we go, the one people would actually be looking for my specific opinion on. Hit me like a truck that, due to linear time against all odds continuing to function, I'll be 31 when this drops. Anyway...sure? Mercifully Coates' Superman has been reaffirmed yet again as still being on, so with the 'real' work going on there, I'm perfectly happy with the prospect of the first ever fully-functional four-quadrant three-act Superman blockbuster. I think Gunn's got the right taste in source material but won't be so reverent as to have a stick up his ass about it, he's good at his job, I'm sure it'll be fun. Curious about that title though; could be as simple as referring to that Kryptonian heritage the extremely basic summary talked about and just calling it Birthright would've been too obvious, but they must know that's gonna foster Expectations with the fandom set of this delivering something sweeping, especially since this being the only project to lack a clear logline suggests they're keeping something big under wraps, and I doubt they do a big space opera with Supergirl while keeping their big Superman kickoff fully provincial in its concerns. My personal shoot-from-the-hip guess is this'll be a time-travel joint involving the Legion (or maybe the Superman Squad, unlikely as it may be, given the All-Star evocations), thus having a younger Superman deal with his past and future legacies alike.
And no, a couple throw away 'leads into' lines in trades aside, I don't think we're seriously getting What's So Funny or Superman and The Authority coming out of this. The latter would be a truly wild move, and as much as he's playing against type here, I can't imagine Gunn being enough of a dork to do the former.
I once again expose myself as a philistine by admitting I've never watched True Detective, but sure, I'll check this out. I respect sticking by their creative guns such that this is a TV show - and a 'core' one, not the Berlanti standalone thing that had been planned - while something like Swamp Thing gets the theatrical treatment, and treating them as investigators first and foremost is a genuinely fairly novel tack for the franchise.
Okay it's a no-fooling hardcore move that Gunn definitely got told 'you gotta get to a JL-style team movie pretty fast' and picked THIS but also: what the fuck. First and foremost does Ellis make money off this, but in addition what's The Authority's cinematic thing when the 21st century superhero template is already Authority-shaped? The big remaining differentiator is the gleefully problematic leftie wish-fulfillment; how hard can they lean into that, even given they seemed to be talking up that angle? Also: as I said doubt we're doing Superman vs., but we're absolutely getting Justice League vs. The Authority, right?
This exists in a state of quantum superposition where it is simultaneously the best and worst idea until we observe a creative team being assigned to it and the wave form collapses. The right team could spin gold, but Gunn and Safran seeming befuddled by their own concept - Game of Thrones, but JUST ladies??? - was one of the bigger 'yikes' moments of the presentation.
I gotta admit, I was not expecting a full-on solo Batman feature, though I guess this keeps the actual 'Batman' branding reserved to Reeves/Pattinson (and I wouldn't be 100% shocked if this set up its characters appearing in other movies rather than an ongoing series just to minimize brand confusion). Still, hey, Batman and Robin! I hope that doesn't preclude Reeves from bringing in one since he seemed interested, but for the time being I'm not gonna complain. Mixed feelings on the Morrison adaptation of it all, as that's The Best Batman Story but realistically it's only gonna adhere to that so much, especially if it's going straight to Bruce and Damian as a crimefighting team. Regardless though, if it can capture even something of the acid-tinted pop kineticism of those B&R years I'm all aboard.
(Also just a little surprised they're doing Damian but presumably no Jon, since I'd have figured they'd want to leap on making Super Sons happen; yes, one or two people see 'Legacy' + 'Young Superman' and are getting there, but even I'm not conspiracy-brained enough to read my guy being involved into what we've heard. Still, they could do Super Sons with Conner or Chris or something, the brand's more important than the characters.)
Good idea, don't really care myself unless they go full sickos.jpg and put Tom King on it, in which case I'm refreshing the HBO Max front page every couple seconds the day it drops.
lol, Tom King's post-Heroes in Crisis and BatCat Wedding 'you'll never work in this town again!!!' status:
Guess they're not screwing around with drawing from source material here, though Tom being in the room wouldn't hurt. I've come to admit to myself I'm just not a Supergirl fan in spite of a bunch of individual stories I enjoy, the comic in question here included, but for sure I'll check this one out. Seriously though, The Man Who Doesn't Understand DC Comics!!!!!!! now made First Royal Advisor to James Gunn's DC Mass-Media Court. You simply gotta hate it. Unless you're me, I love it, us freaks stay right and stay winning.
Sorry Swampy, it's me not you, but Alan wasn't able to make me like you and I doubt this'll succeed where he failed. Glad this exists though.
Further notes:
I appreciate Gunn's candor regarding the studios' failings up to this point; certainly did not care for him pussyfooting around Levi and far more so Miller or hyping up The Flash, even given to a certain extent he's mandated to. Safran was worse, but he's the official suit in the room so that didn't catch me off-guard.
I appreciate the multi-genre layout (and hopefully avoiding MCU-style conceptual flattening) and emphasis on stuff you can actually pitch to normal people - a Superman thing and a Batman thing, a detective thing, a post-GoT thing, a horror thing, a hard-R action thing, a big sci-fi thing, and a pisstake - as opposed to kissing the fandom ring with the 'WE GOTTA GET TO CRISIS' of it all this easily could've been.
Dig the 'mission statement':
I think that we have a lot of differences (from the MCU). I think that one of the reasons why I love DC is it really is another universe. It’s an alternate world. In Marvel generally, it’s New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and then every place else in the world is a fictional universe for some reason. Here at DCU we have Metropolis and Gotham and Themyscira and Atlantis, and all of that is sort of another fictional universe. And this is the world that we’re creating.
We’re coming into a world where superheroes exist and have existed for some time in one form or another, and that’s the universe. And so we are telling a big, huge central story. Except for, I think, we’re a lot more planned out than Marvel from the beginning, because we’ve gotten a group of writers together to work that story out completely. But we’re also creating a universe that is like Star Wars where there are different times, different places, different things, [and] like Game of Thrones, where characters are a little bit more morally complex.
Tom King, Christal Henry, Christina Hodson, Drew Goddard, Jeremy Slater. Largely a solid writers room lineup! Especially glad to see Hodson, she's been dicked around with impossibly hard and has paid for this W in blood.
For all the hubris declared and real of this slate, Superman: Legacy and The Batman - Part II dropping within a few months of one another says they know full well how bad they need to come roaring out of the gate. Pitting those two in the same year against Fantastic Four and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty just as it feels like everyone's REALLY finally starting to burn out on the MCU is going to be a wild trial by fire for all involved. Batman I think gets the 'okay we're in the seat for this take now' bump that Spider-Man did with Far from Home; Superman I think beats Fantastic Four, because the former has some 'oh shit, it's that guy! On that big thing!' cache, whereas Fantastic Four is a this point a Guardians/Eternals-level 'you REALLY gotta justify yourself' property and the creatives attached are...uninspiring. Avengers is the question mark of 'will this really still be the biggest thing in the world without RDJ, Evans, or a lead-in narrative anyone cares about'.