James Gunn Says He's Struggling With DCU's Batman, Comments On MCU Getting ‘Killed'
Superman
There is perhaps no industry figure more visible at the moment (besides actors themselves) than James Gunn, the new head of the DCU. Gunn's shooting down rumors on social media, appearing in promos for his Superman movie, and doing wide-reaching interviews, like recent ones in Variety and Rolling Stone.
Gunn is extremely candid about his initial time in the DCU here and his plans going forward. In the piece, he outright says he killed an entire DCU project because the screenplay wasn't good, and he discusses how he's struggling to figure out what to do with the DCU's Batman. The quote:
"Batman has to have a reason for existing, right? 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 [Reeves']
'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," he told Rolling Stone. "Every single Batman story has been told. It seems like half the comics that have come out of DC over the past 30 years have Batman in them. He's the most famous superhero in the world and the most popular superhero in the world. And people love him because he's interesting, but also having so much of him out there can also make him boring. So how do you create that property that's fun to watch?"
The Batman
Gunn has seemingly ruled out Reeves' Robert Pattinson Batman as being the DCU Batman multiple times, but he also occasionally leaves the door open saying 'Never say never.' He recently gave an update on The Batman 2, saying it's not canceled, but he doesn't have a script and Reeves is 'slow,' though clearly he's not trying to be derogatory; it just is what it is, and it will arrive when it arrives. 'Let him do his thing, man,' Gunn said.
In addition to being frank about his Batman block, he commented on his old home, Marvel. He enjoys being free of a mandate from WB to make a certain amount of movies in a tight time period, unlike Disney and the MCU:
'That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it killed them,' Gunn said of Marvel. 'We don't have the mandate [at DC]
to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality. We're obviously going to do some good things and some not-so-good things, but hopefully on average everything will be as high-quality as possible. Nothing goes before there's a screenplay that I personally am happy with.'
The Marvels
Whether the MCU is 'killed' is up for debate. It certainly has had a number of failed features in the post-Endgame era, but also huge hits like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool and Wolverine. Now, it's crunch time with releases like this summer's Fantastic Four and two more Avengers movies with odd concepts like Robert Downey Jr. appearing as Doctor Doom.
It's not like Gunn has nothing to prove, however. He has what appears to be something like a ten-year plan for DC, but we've seen nothing official from the DCU short of a season of Creature Commandos. Superman has to make a good first impression. My gut says it will, but we'll see how Batman goes when the time comes around for yet another iteration of that character.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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