Blog

While it included projects set to introduce DC mainstays such as Superman, Batman and Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and John Stewart, the initial DC Studios’ slate revealed in early 2023 also showed that studio co-chairs James Gunn and Peter Safran were embracing lesser known characters as well. By kicking off the all-new DCU with the animated Creature Commandos and prepping projects featuring non-household names such as Booster Gold and The Authority, the studio is starkly setting itself apart from the Snyderverse’s dependence on the Trinity plus one.

As projects are added to the original list, it’s clear that Gunn and Safran are committed to exploring all genres, corners and eras of the expansive DC Comics universe. Luca Guadagnino‘s Sgt. Rock film will reportedly be set during World War II, Booster Gold will be set, at least in part, in the future and James Mangold‘s Swamp Thing will be a “tonally different” film that will “investigate the dark origins” of the Avatar of the Green. And, as proven with Creature Commandos, the studio has no reservations about telling stories vital to the continuity through animation or via streaming and now it seems as though a change of plans behind the scenes might mean one of the originally announced projects is headed in a different direction.

According to social media scooper Apocalyptic Horseman, DC Studios has decided to move forward with The Authority as an animated feature film.

The Authority was created as part of Jim Lee’s WildStorm universe which was eventually purchased by DC comics and, during the New 52 publishing initiative, integrated into the mainstream continuity. The super team, once described as the Anti-Justice League for their lack of a moral compass, is hardly among the most popular group of DC comic book characters but look to play a big part in the overarching narrative of the DCU and will be introduced in Superman via their leader, The Engineer, who will serve as one of the piece’s villains.

Fans may not be quite familiar with the team, which Safran compared to Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men saying, “they know that you want them on the wall, or at least they believe that.” Gunn gave a little more detail of what to expect from this win-at-all-costs group.

They are basically good-intentioned, 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—basically, whatever they want to do to make the world better. We’ll see how that journey goes for them. There are morally gray characters (in our DCU), of which these are.

-James Gunn on the members of The Authority

Though no writer for the film has ever been revealed, Gunn outlined the plot. In early 2023, Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn was rumored to be in line to direct the project. While that’s never been confirmed, neither Vaughn nor Gunn, who is often quick to shoot down false rumors, have denied the veracity of that rumor.

The Authority has no scheduled release date at the moment but should the report about the studio developing it as an animated feature film be accurate, it is worth questioning whether it will release in theaters or on HBO where it could find an audience over time without a snap judgement made about the box office take of a project full of unknown characters.

DC’s Teen Titans are foundational pieces of Gen Z’s superhero love. That connection comes from the frenetic and beloved animated series, Teen Titans Go!, which kicked off its eight-season run on Cartoon Network in 2013. To an entire generation–and maybe even a second–Robin, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy were more than a gateway to superhero fare, they were the alpha and omega of it. Go ahead and try to watch just one episode… impossible. Despite 4 seasons of the dour and brooding HBO streaming series, Titans, stripping away everything fans loved about the characters, the teen heroes remain a major IP for DC Comics and, soon, for DC Studios.

Earlier this year, a trade report revealed that Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow scribe Ana Nogueira was tasked with bringing the Teen Titans to the all-new DCU. Though a Teen Titans film was not part of James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s original slate tease, it came as no surprise that the studio was interested in bringing the team to the screen. First introduced into the pages of DC Comics in the 1960s, the Teen Titans have a been a staple for the publishing house. The makeup of the roster has undergone some changes over the years but thanks to Teen Titans Go!, fans have a strong sense of the key players. And apparently DC Studios smartly plans to leverage that in their upcoming live-action film.

According to insider Apocalyptic Horseman, DC Studios’ Teen Titans film will feature the five fan-favorite characters from Teen Titans Go!, though apparently the studio is debating which of Batman’s Robins will star in the project.

Though Dick Grayson founded the Titans with Wally West and Aqualad, Robins Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Damian Wayne have all been part of the rotating roster of heroes over the decades. With Damian set to appear in The Brave and the Bold and Batman already well-established in the DCU, it seems more likely than not that another Robin other than the Demon’s grandson will take center stage in Teen Titans.

At this time, Teen Titans does not have a timeline for beginning production nor has it been given a release date.

The history of unmade projects may be one of the most fascinating pieces of the Hollywood, especially in the case of superhero properties. Well before the 2000s kicked off the golden age of comic book movies, dozens of projects never got off the ground despite having completed scripts or died their deaths at various points in production. Even in its relatively short history, Marvel Studios is no stranger to seeing projects fall by the wayside. Brian K. Vaughan and Drew Pearce‘s Runaways was pushed aside for The Avengers; after being announced in 2014, Inhumans was tossed aside; recently, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was scrapped after the studio parted ways with the film’s star, Jonathan Majors.

Of course, not making it into theaters isn’t always a death blow. The characters who would have starred in Runaways and Inhumans made their way to television, though hey did so without the involvement of Marvel Studios. The moral of the story is that despite a sometimes strong public sentiment to the contrary, not every project that is dreamed up makes its way to an audience. Marvel’s head of streaming, television and animation, Brad Winderbaum, recently made it clear that moving forward the studio will be “developing more than we make” and that the days of meeting a release date come “hell or high water” are a thing of the past. In short, projects in development at Marvel Studios have never had a more uncertain road to screens big or small than they do now.

Perhaps no project serves as a better example of the tenuous trek from script to screen than Young Avengers. In development since at least Summer 2021, the project has been rumored to both a streaming series and a film and be ready to head into production on multiple occasions over the years. However, despite an outright tease in The Marvels and the arrival of one of the team’s central figures in Agatha All Along, Marvel Studios has yet to officially acknowledge a Young Avengers project is in the works. Now we may know why.

As part of the studio’s recent changes to its way of doing business behind the scenes, projects further out on the release schedule were back burnered in mid-2023 following a pair of strikes. With the streaming and theatrical slates now set through 2025, the studio has slowly begun to turn its attention to the future and it seems the Young Avengers project has found its way into the cross hairs of the Marvel Parliament again…sort of.

According to reliable Marvel insider Daniel Richtman, Marvel has chosen to develop the project as a Disney Plus streaming series rather than a film and is now searching for a showrunner. However, in a move that is sure to churn up controversy among fans, the studio has chosen to rebrand the project as Champions, according to another social media scooper, Apocalypse Horseman.

Despite the vitriol it’s sure to inspire, the name change is not without comic book inspiration. Originally devised in 1975 as a title featuring a team of heroes that included Black Widow, Hercules and Ghost Rider, the title was repurposed in 2016 for an all-new, all-different team created by Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos. The modern team was founded by young heroes following Civil War II and an ideological dispute with the Avengers.

As explained by Marvel Comics editor Tom Breevort, the team aspired to “reclaim and redefine in a classic sense what being a superhero should mean.” Champions assembled teen heroes Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales, Sam Alexander, Amadeus Cho, a time-displaced Cyclops and the synthezoid Viv Vision. As is the case with all Marvel Comics teams, the Champions roster rotated members in and out, including, among othes, Riri Williams and Joaquin Torres.

According to Richtman, part of the reason the studio chose to rebrand the project as Champions was because with its arrival on D+ still years away, many of the expected members of the team will no longer fit the bill of ‘young” Avengers. While there’s obviously no confirmed cast for the series, Iman Vellani (22 years old) and Hailee Steinfeld (27 years old) seem likely to lead the project alongside Dominique Thorne (27 years old), Kathryn Newton (27 years old), Elijah Richardson (25 years old), Joe Locke (21 years old) and Xochitl Gomez (18 years old). Additionally, Logan Kim (17 years old), who will portray Amadeus Cho in Captain America: Brave New World, the actor yet to be cast as Tommy Shepherd and, possibly, an actress yet to be cast as Viv Vision could all find their way onto the titular team as well.

Nearly two years ago, James Gunn and Peter Safran pulled back the curtain to reveal a peek at the slate of films and streaming series that would help build out DC Studios’ Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. The co-chairs rolled out an impressive future schedule that included projects starring some of DC’s most tried and true characters and others featuring characters that most folks would have to Google.

While a handful of those projects have quickly found their way onto Warner Bros. Discovery’s release calendar, others are still early in development. However, as Gunn recently teased, projects that weren’t part of the studio’s January 2023 rollout have been gaining ground behind the scenes. One such project, the World War II period piece, Sgt. Rock, has a script in place and may be ready to film relatively soon. Now, another project that was left off the original list is making noise and may be ready to go before cameras next year.

According to the combined reports of insiders Daniel Richtman and Apocalyptic Horseman, DC Studios will begin production on a solo Clayface film next Spring. The film’s script was written by Mike Flanagan, the creator behind Netflix’s horror series The Haunting of Hill House and its subsequent follow-ups. Flanagan reportedly pitched the project last year though he refused comment on it at the time.

We reported on this last year actually. The script is finished and was written by Mike Flanagan. Expect this to be one of the next films after Supergirl. It’s aiming to shoot in Spring last I heard https://t.co/KVl5l3bE9c

— Apocalyptic Horseman (@ApocHorseman) November 22, 2024

While it’s not confirmed, Apocalyptic Horseman indicated that the project may be part of the DCU’s new continuity rather than Matt Reeves‘ Batman Epic Crime Saga. Given that Clayface is set to make a minor appearance in the upcoming animated streaming series, Creature Commandos, there’s certainly room to explore the character’s history in a solo film.

With a project featuring Batman villains Bane and Deathstroke already in development, a Clayface solo film, should it indeed be confirmed at some point, would be the second DC Studios’ project to feature a member of the Caped Crusader’s Rogues gallery.