James Gunn has once again turned to Threads to defend the DC universe, and this time he’s clarifying the eight-to-10-year road map for the fictional world he previously proposed, making it clearer where each character stands on that map.
“You can check out my quotes from when we started on January 23rd and said we were going to do exactly what we were doing,” the DC Studios co-president wrote in response to a now-deleted post. “I said some stories would be standalone, like the Guardians movies (which is Clayface), and some stories would be part of a larger narrative structure, which is what the Superman Saga would be like. All that said, each piece of the larger story should work on its own, whether or not it has to see through everything else.”
He continued in a second post: “ALSO, some things are getting mixed up here. The ‘8 to 10 year roadmap’ originally pitched wasn’t just the story points (though that was part of it as well), but the plan for DC as a whole, including a focus on diamond characters (Superman, Batman, WW) as well as smaller characters we could turn into diamonds (Krypto, John Stewart, Peacemaker); how to leverage filmmakers’ freedom and allow for multiple tones and gradations, influences.” Star Wars and George RR Martin and many more.”
Gunn’s memo about the “8- to 10-year roadmap” comes as he and fellow co-chairman Peter Safran are working on a virtual Warner Bros. He cites Discovery town hall talks for 2022, where he said they are laying out an 8- to 10-year plan for D.C. In his third post, he added: “It’s exciting to see everything STARTING to come together and it all makes me even more excited about what we have in store for everyone on Man of Tomorrow.”
On Saturday, Gunn took to the social media platform to defend his decision to expand the DC universe with “individual stories” amid criticism that his films were not building towards a major crossover event.
In response to a commenter who pointed out that Gunn didn’t need to lay the foundation for a fully interconnected universe, he wrote: “I couldn’t agree more.” “The DCU is just an alternate universe; we can enter any place or time and tell THAT story. I don’t like the idea that individual stories don’t make sense unless they lead to something else. It’s weird to me that people don’t get that, because ‘Star Wars’ has essentially been doing this for 50 years through movies, shows, games and books, admittedly without tonal diversity,” he wrote.
Gunn’s next film, “Superman: The Man of Tomorrow,” will be in theaters on July 9, 2027.