James Gunn's DCU Is Officially Switching Genres Twice This Summer

After a promising soft launch with Creature Commandos, James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Universe officially began last summer with the blockbuster success of Superman. Not only did Superman get people excited about DC again for the first time in years, it also inspired audiences to feel hope and optimism during an absurdly dark time in recent history. At the tail end of a decade of mopey, miserable, grimdark Superman films, it was refreshing to finally see a Superman who’s basically Ted Lasso in a cape — the aw-shucks goody two-shoes farm boy we recognize from the comics.

Superman felt like a comic book brought to life, with brightly colored cinematic splash pages — it’s a quintessential superhero movie. But Gunn has been very clear that he wasn’t laying out a house style with Superman. That’s how he approached that particular character, and that particular story, but he won’t be expecting the DCU’s other directors to follow in his footsteps and emulate what he did with Superman.

Instead, Gunn is encouraging filmmakers like Supergirl’s Craig Gillespie and Clayface’s Mike Flanagan to follow their own vision, and give their projects the tone and aesthetic that the story calls for. Superman was a relatively grounded sci-fi/fantasy superhero epic — a big, colorful crossover event like Infinity War or Across the Spider-Verse — but Supergirl, which hits theaters on June 26, is more of a space opera, and Lanterns, which premieres on HBO on August 16, is a dark, grisly, grounded murder mystery.

Supergirl has been described as being similar to Guardians of the Galaxy: a rollicking action comedy with dazzling cosmic visuals, a sizzling jukebox soundtrack, and touching themes of found family. But Lanterns has been likened to gritty HBO detective dramas like True Detective and Mare of Easttown. Honestly, I’m excited about all this genre experimentation.

Lots Of Different Genres Is Good For The DCU

Hal Jordan and John Stewart in a preview image for Lanterns

The DCU will switch genres once again before the year is over. On October 23, DC will release its first horror movie, Clayface, telling the tragic origin story of the titular Batman villain. Based on its trailer, Clayface seems to be a full-on gonzo body horror epic in the vein of The Substance or Together. All these different genres and tones and styles will be good for the DCU. It’ll stop it from getting stale and settling into a familiar plot formula or visual house style like Marvel has.

Even when a new movie or TV show isn’t particularly great, at least it’ll be very different from what we’ve seen before. There have been a lot of complaints about Lanterns since its dull, slow, decidedly gray (i.e. not green) teaser trailer first dropped. Comic book readers, who are used to seeing the Green Lantern Corps depicted as an intergalactic police force battling aliens and monsters across the cosmos, don’t necessarily agree that a gritty, grounded whodunit with its feet planted firmly on Nebraskan soil is the best way to do a Green Lantern TV show.

But, whether Lanterns turns out to be an unexpected hit or an unmitigated disaster, I’m glad the DCU is taking big swings like this. James Mangold is working on a gothic horror-tinged Swamp Thing movie, which could be DC’s Crimson Peak. Bane and Deathstroke are teaming up for what will presumably be a sort of Midnight Run-style odd-couple buddy comedy set in Gotham City.

A war movie about Sgt. Rock and a ragtag ensemble actioner about the Authority are both stuck in development hell, but the fact they’re on the docket at all means Gunn and Safran are willing to take a chance on D-list characters outside the usual superhero fare. The DCU is in very safe hands.