Co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios James Gunn has offered further insight into his and Peter Safran’s approach to recalibrating the DCU, revealing that the franchise could include both PG-13 and R-rated projects. As detailed by DC.com, Gunn will aim to do whatever best suits the story and its characters, meaning that things could get bloody should the situation need it.
“It depends on the story. We’re going to give every story what it deserves. Some things we know. Superman is definitely something we know we’d like to be PG-13, so I’m going to make sure it is. Other things, like the Waller TV show, are a little bit more mature. And we have other things that are aimed a bit more at young women or at kids that are still within this world.”
This would not be the first time James Gunn has brought more mature elements to the world of DC, with the director helming the first R-rated project in the DCEU with The Suicide Squad in 2021. Since then, Gunn has continued to bring violence and foul language with the critically acclaimed first season of Peacemaker. And it certainly sounds like he is willing to continue this approach in his and Safran’s DCU.
The First Phase of the DCU is Titled Chapter 1: Gods & Monsters
Thanks to James Gunn’s delightfully personable presentation yesterday, we now have a surprisingly well-informed idea of what the first chapter of the new DCU will look like. Titled Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, the franchise will begin with a Superman reboot; Superman: Legacy.
Introducing a younger version of the Man of Steel, Superman: Legacy will see the character deal with “balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way. He is kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned.”
Things will then make a sudden lunge towards the more obscure, with the DCU introducing audiences to The Authority, a superhero team with rather extreme and unorthodox methods of protecting the planet and carrying out justice. All of which sounds like it’s crying out for an R-rating.
“The Authority is a very different kind of superhero story. They are basically good intention, but they think that the world is completely broken and the only way to fix it is to take things into their own hands, whether that means killing people, destroying heads of state, changing governments, whatever they want to do to make the world better,” Gunn explained. “And we’ll see how that journey goes for them. But as I said earlier, there’s morally gray characters of which these are.”
Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters will also include the Batman project The Brave and the Bold, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a Swamp Thing reboot, a Wonder Woman prequel series titled Paradise Lost, the animated series Creature Commandos, a Waller-centered spinoff series, a Green Lantern series in the vein of True Detective titled Lanterns, and a Booster Gold-fronted series.
