Even the strongest heroes aren’t safe at James Gunn’s DC Studios.
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DC’s film plans were already shifting before James Gunn and Peter Safran arrived to shake up DC Studios. Even projects that seemed rock-solid have been tossed out over the past year, and more may be on the way out.
The idea of a New Gods movie always felt a bit like a fever dream, but the Ava DuVernay-directed project was nothing if not intriguing. Warner Bros. canceled the movie based on a wild series of psychedelic ‘70s comics back in 2021.
Aquaman spinoff The Trench would have brought director James Wan’s considerable horror experience to the DC movie universe. The Trench was canceled at the same time as New Gods, but Wan is still directing 2023’s Aquaman 2.
Warner Bros. reportedly rejected a treatment for Man of Steel 2 in December 2022, and development stalled in DC’s big leadership change. That doesn’t mean it’s the end for Superman, though — James Gunn says the Man of Steel is “a huge priority,” even if the film by that name (or Henry Cavill’s take on the hero) isn’t.
Batgirl’s cancelation was the strangest of all, as it came after filming had wrapped. Reportedly canned so Warner Bros. could focus entirely on mega-blockbusters, the film would have featured Leslie Grace in the title role, the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman, and Brendan Fraser as the Batman villain Firefly.
One of the more painful recent cancelations was a Batman Beyond movie, based on the cult favorite cartoon that started in 1999. It reportedly could have featured Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne and included a romance between Keaton’s Batman and Michelle Pfieffer’s Catwoman.
Wonder Woman 3 was the highest-profile project to fall at DC this year. After director Patty Jenkins’ script treatment was rejected by Warner Bros., some reports say she walked off with an incredible mic drop — ending an email to studio heads with a link to the definition of “character arc.”