In his leadership role with the newly formed DC Studios, James Gunn can fulfill a missed opportunity from his time with the MCU. After entering the DCEU fray with 2021’s The Suicide Squad and its spinoff series, Peacemaker, Gunn is helping chart the franchise’s future as co-CEO of DC Studios with Peter Safran. Gunn and Safran are mapping a 10-year plan in the “DC Bible,” which will comprise DC movies, TV shows, animation, and video games.
Prior to his work in the newly re-branded DCU, James Gunn was well-known as the director of the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. His early involvement with DC Studios is also overlapping with his final Marvel projects, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Meanwhile, Gunn’s role in overseeing the DCU’s future can revive a major role that he was once rumored to hold in the larger MCU.
James Gunn Was Involved In Marvel’s Cosmic Universe
After the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. James Gunn was rumored to be an architect of the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kevin Feige later clarified that Gunn’s work on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies was simply the basis for Marvel’s cosmic elements. Following Gunn’s firing from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 over controversial past tweets, he was eventually re-hired by Disney, but the situation of Gunn’s career had grown a little more complicated.
James Gunn boarding The Suicide Squad came in the period between his dismissal and subsequent re-hiring by Disney. In that time frame, not only was the release date of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 forced to be postponed but Gunn’s various DC projects no longer made it possible for him to commit to actively work in the MCU full-time. However, Gunn could now plot out DC’s cosmic elements as he was once rumored to do for Marvel.
How Gunn Could Map The Cosmic Elements Of The DCU
As the creative lead of DC Studios, Gunn is directly connected to every upcoming DCU project releasing after 2023 (Matt Reeves’s The Batman universe and Todd Phillips’s Joker movies are independent of DCU planning). By default, Gunn will oversee the Green Lantern Corps, the New Gods, and every other cosmic-based character in the DCU. While filmmakers are said to be given considerable free rein under DC Studios, the overall roadmap of where they will go is falling to Gunn.
There remains a great number of unanswered questions about what exactly that will entail for the DCU, though Gunn frequently takes to Twitter to provide as much clarity as he can. In any case, the DCU’s future under DC Studios’ 10-year plan will likely venture to the stars and the wider multiverse as much as Earth itself. In planning what he describes as “the Biggest Story Ever Told,” James Gunn‘s plans with DC Studios can bring in many cosmic DC stories and characters, including those appearing on the big screen for the first time.
