The Future of the DCU Officially Addressed as James Gunn Compares It to ‘Star Wars’

James Gunn and Peter Safran have now been building out their new DC Universe for a few years. Superman went over well in 2025, but the follow-up movie Supergirl was a box office flop. The newest entry, the horror movie Clayface, is off to a strong start. On the TV side, we’ve seen shows like Creature Commandos, Peacemaker, and Lanterns. The universe is growing.

One fan on Threads wondered where all of this was going to lead, calling these shows and movies the “foundation” of Gunn’s cinematic universe. “What is this all building towards?” they asked. Another fan responded, opining that Gunn “doesn’t have to build towards anything” so long as the individual projects are entertaining by themselves. “[I]f they crossover at some point, presumably like in Man of Tomorrow, cool that’s awesome. I think the MCU reprogrammed people’s expectations.”

That’s when Gunn, who’s known to weigh in on these kinds of discussions, joined the chat.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Gunn wrote on Threads. “DCU is just an alternate universe; we can enter at any location or time and tell THAT story. I dislike the idea that individual stories aren’t meaningful unless they lead to something else. People not understanding this is strange to me, because Star Wars has essentially been doing this for 50 years across movies, shows, games and books, admittedly without the tonal variety.”

Star Wars movies and TV shows have been coming out since 1977, and it’s true that they don’t usually culminate in big crossover events the way Marvel movies and TV shows do. The original Star Wars trilogy can be watched more or less apart from the prequel trilogy, which can be watched apart from the sequel trilogy, to say nothing of other offshoots like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew.

At the same time, all of those Star Wars projects are set in the same universe and often inform each other. And James Gunn doesn’t mean that there won’t be “connectivity” between the various movies and shows in the DCU.

The Superman Saga starts with Superman and travels into Man of Tomorrow and onward, and contains many characters we’ve introduced in other stories. But that doesn’t mean those other stories only exist to set up what’s happening there. I would love people to be seeing Clayface because it’s a great, fun horror movie unto itself, not because of where else Clayface will show up three movies from now.

Clearly, James Gunn is not averse to having characters from one DC project appear in another. The upcoming Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, will feature several characters we’ve already met from other movies and TV shows, including John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) from Lanterns, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) from Peacemaker, and even Jamie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) from Blue Beetle.

But Man of Tomorrow is still expected to be mainly Superman’s story. As of yet, we haven’t heard many details about Gunn and Safran planning any huge, Avengers-style crossover movie. Their caution may be justified, since the last time something like that happened was in 2017 with Justice League, which was widely considered a disappointment.

Avengers: Doomsday, the next big Marvel crossover event, opens in theaters on December 18, 2026. As for Man of Tomorrow, it will open on July 9, 2027. There may well be an Avengers-style crossover event in the future of the DCU, but Gunn and Safran seem in no rush to get there.