James Gunn’s DC Update Has Us Wondering: Where’s Wonder Woman?

Issues of DC Comics Presents featured a back-up series, “Whatever Happened To…?,” which provided readers with an update on lesser-known characters like Congorilla, the Sandman, and Doctor Mid-Nite. It’s now a question that we’re asking of the big three: DC’s Trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

Two years after DC Studios co-chairmen James Gunn and Peter Safran announced their first 10 projects — including a Superman movie reboot, a Batman reboot, and a live-action Wonder Woman prequel series set on Themyscira — the duo reconvened with a small number of journalists on the Warner Bros. Burbank lot to provide an update on (nearly) everything that Gunn and Safran first presented in January 2023.

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Some projects that were announced as part of the initial slate, like the series Waller and Booster Gold, and the films Swamp Thing and The Authority, have been put on the back burner. Others that weren’t revealed until later, like the Mike Flanagan-scripted Clayface and the Luca Guadagnino-directed Sgt. Rock, then catapulted to the forefront based on the strength of their scripts.

Although there’s what Gunn described as a “basic” six-year plan leading to an Avengers-style culmination, Safran said, “We’ve laid out internally a plan, but we’re happy to pivot as we discover things in the making of Superman or Supergirl or scripts being written. There’s a flexibility built into it even though we know where the larger story is headed.”

Meanwhile, the DCU Batman and Robin movie The Brave and the Bold remains in “active development,” the Teen Titans are officially a go with an in-the-works script by Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow writer Ana Nogueira, and Moon Knight writer Matthew Orton is on assignment scripting a secret project rumored to include villains Bane and Deathstroke.

On the TV side of the DC Universe, Peacemaker season 2 is still set to premiere later this year on Max, HBO’s Lanterns is expected to air in early 2026, and three new “younger-skewing” animated series — DC Super Powers, Starfire, and My Adventures with Green Lantern — have been greenlit. The Suicide Squad/Peacemaker spinoff series Waller and the time-traveling comedy Booster Gold, while still in development, aren’t as far along.

Little was said about Paradise Lost, other than confirmation that the series is still in the works. (This past November, Gunn said it was in “very active development.”)

When the Max series was first announced in 2023, Safran described it as “a Game of Thrones-type story about Themyscira/Paradise Island, home of the Amazons and the birthplace of Wonder Woman,” which “involves all of the darkness, drama and political intrigue behind this society of only women.” (The Princess of Themyscira’s homeland has since made an appearance on the adult animated series Creature Commandos, which featured the Wonder Woman villain Circe.) “The events really take place before Diana’s birth,” he said.

Added Gunn, “It’s an origin story of how this society of women came about. What does it mean? What are their politics like? What are their rules? Who’s in charge? What are the games that they play with each other to get to the top? I think it’s really exciting.”

The only other update on Wonder Woman arrived days later when it was announced on Tuesday that Warner Bros. Discovery was shuttering multiple game studios, including Monolith Productions, which was developing the open-world Wonder Woman video game. WB Games and Monolith’s Wonder Woman game “will not move forward” as part of what the video game division called “a strategic change in direction.”

Besides Batman and Superman, it seems that characters recently featured in the decade-long DC Extended Universe — including Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller’s Flash, and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman — are temporarily taking a backseat, while characters who either didn’t appear or appeared briefly (like Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter) are, at least at first, being prioritized.

A version of the Flash will appear as part of the cast of the animated series Super Powers alongside the likes of Lightning, Aquagirl, Plastic Man, Green Lantern, Terra, and Martian Manhunter, while the Jessica Cruz Green Lantern will wield the Power Ring in her own My Adventures with Superman spinoff series. (As for the Amazing Amazon, Wonder Woman’s corpse made a cameo, in animated form, in an episode of Creature Commandos.)

In taking the reins of DC, the co-chairmen set out to bring “a sense of unity, cohesion, consistency to this universe,” Safran said. “People want to see these iconic characters interacting, they want to experience this timeless IP as one.” Or a trinity.