A Wrinkle in Time filmmaker Ava DuVernay will finally make her superhero debut…with an adaptation of Jack Kirby’s epic The New Gods, Deadline reports.
Set after Ragnarok and the birth of a new generation of gods, The New Gods was part of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World cycle of storytelling, along with Mister Miracle and The Forever People.
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The story pits the evil gods of Apokolips, led by Darkseid, against the bright and idealistic gods of New Genesis, led by Highfather.
Steppenwolf, the villain in last year’s Justice League, is one of the New Gods and the uncle of Darkseid. Nevertheless, DuVernay’s New Gods will be unrelated to the existing DC movies, and will presumably either omit Steppenwolf or use a more comics-accurate version of the character.
DuVernay has flirted with superhero movies in the past, but it never quite worked out. She famously declined to direct Black Panther, a job which then went to Creed filmmaker Ryan Coogler. Marvel has reportedly been eyeing her for some time, but it looks like Warner Bros — perhaps specifically because of the offer to make her film independent of a shared universe — has lured her in first.
There is presumably millennia of history DuVernay can explore with these immortal figures that does not tie directly into the antics of Wonder Woman and Superman.
Mister Miracle is the son of Highfather, who was raised on Apokolips as a kind of mutally-assured destruction pact with Darkseid, who sent his son Orion to be raised on New Genesis. Miracle is perhaps the most marketable of all of the New Gods characters, along with his wife, Big Barda, and Orion himself.
Late last year, when asked who her favorite superhero was, DuVernay tweeted, “Big Barda. Many reasons.” It seems possible, but not necessarily true, that DuVernay was working on New Gods at that point, since the Deadline report indicates that Warner Bros. does not yet have a screenwriter.
Mister Miracle and Big Barda star in one of DC’s most acclaimed titles right now, Tom King and Mitch Gerads’s Mister Miracle, and in yesterday’s issue welcomed a baby into the world.
The theatrical cut of Justice League is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital with a couple of deleted scenes and some documentary material. The DC Extended Universe continues with Aquaman on December 21st, Shazam! on April 5, 2019, Wonder Woman 2 on November 1, 2019, Cyborg in 2020, and Green Lantern Corps in 2020.
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