Tom King Teases Start of Work on New Gods Movie

After the missteps of the Justice League movie and its attempt to bring Apokolips to the DC Universe, Warner Bros. Pictures is now focusing on rebooting the characters with director Ava DuVernay tackling New Gods. She’ll be getting some help from a fan-favorite comic scribe with Tom King coming aboard to help write the screenplay.

King is well known for his popular run on the series Mister Miracle, which chronicles the son of Highfather’s battles with clinical depression while also reintroducing the New Gods in the DC Rebirth era. Now the writer is teasing work on the upcoming film after his appearance at San Diego Comic-Con this week.

It’s not clear just what New Gods will focus on just yet, as DuVernay and King have yet to speak extensively on their plans for the upcoming film. But the two have made a lot of teases, especially DuVernay who has gone on the record multiple times in stating that Big Barda is her favorite character.

Perhaps that’s why she recruited King to help her on the screenplay, given that the Mister Miracle comic was actually a story that focused on the relationship between he and Barda.

DuVernay is making her first foray into the superhero movie genre with New Gods, and Warner Bros. is intent on lining up talented filmmakers to create their stories rather than focusing on building a shared universe.

Former WB boss Kevin Tsujihara spoke about his intention to sign talented creators for DC movies, and though he’s since been let go after sexual misconduct allegations, he did set the current lineup of filmmakers tacking their latest projects.

“We have the right people in the right jobs working on it.” Tsujihara explained. “The universe isn’t as connected as we thought it was going to be five years ago. You’re seeing much more focus on individual experiences around individual characters. That’s not to say we won’t at some point come back to that notion of a more connected universe. But it feels like that’s the right strategy for us right now.”

“What Patty Jenkins did on Wonder Woman illustrated to us what you could do with these characters who are not Batman and Superman,” Tsujihara added. “Obviously, we want to get those two in the right place, and we want strong movies around Batman and Superman. But Aquaman is a perfect example of what we can do. They’re each unique and the tone’s different in each movie.”

New Gods does not yet have a release date.