While DC Studios co-head James Gunn is getting the new DC film universe off the ground with next month’s Superman and next year’s Supergirl, among the other TV projects in various stages of development, one of the biggest question marks in all this is where does the Dark Knight stand in the new DCU?
Batman is not without any big screen projects as the HBO series The Penguin premiered earlier this year and director Matt Reeves is currently developing The Batman Part II, a film expected to begin production next year. However, Reeves’ version of Batman, as played by Robert Pattinson, is considered a separate universe from the DCU, similar to how Joker and its sequel Joker: Folie à Deux was not connected to the previous DC film universe or The Batman.
Gunn has been hard at work developing a version of Batman that will be distinct from Reeves’ ongoing The Batman saga and when exactly it may be released. Currently The Flash director Andy Muschietti is attached to direct Batman: The Brave and the Bold with an unknown screenwriter developing the story with Gunn, though Gunn will not co-write.
As he told Rolling Stone, “Batman’s my biggest issue in all of DC right now, personally. And it’s not — I’m not writing Batman, but I am working with the writer of Batman and trying to get it right, because he’s incredibly important to DC, as is Wonder Woman. So outside of the stuff that I’m doing in the projects that are actively going, our two priorities are finishing our Wonder Woman and our Batman scripts.”
As for how Batman, whose onscreen adventures have been considerably more grounded in reality while his more fantastical outings have not fared nearly as well with audiences, will fit within the DCU is something Gunn is keenly aware of and working hard to develop.
“Batman has to have a reason for existing, right?” Gunn said further. “So Batman can’t just be ‘Oh, we’re making a Batman movie because Batman’s the biggest character in all of Warner Bros.,’ which he is. But because there’s a need for him in the DCU and a need that he’s not exactly the same as Matt’s Batman. But yet he’s not a campy Batman. I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in a funny, campy Batman, really. So we’re dealing with that. I think I have a way in, by the way. I think I really know what it’s — I just am dealing with the writer to make sure that we can make it a reality.”
The film is still titled Batman: The Brave and the Bold, though as Gunn did with Superman and just announced with Supergirl, he is not a fan of superhero films having subtitles so the title may change in the future whenever it goes into active development.
In addition to Superman which will be released next month and next summer’s Supergirl, Gunn recently announced a new Wonder Woman is being written by an unknown writer. On the TV side, the second season of Peacemaker will premiere at the end of August and the Green Lantern-centric Lanterns is currently filming. A second season of the animated series Creature Commandos is also in production.
Ricky Church – Follow me on Bluesky for more movie news and nerd talk.
