DC's James Gunn and Peter Safran to Detail 10-Year DC Studios Plan at CinemaCon
DC Studios co-chairmen and CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran are bringing the first chapter of their new DC Universe to CinemaCon. During Warner Bros. Picture's presentation highlighting its upcoming slate at the annual convention for theater owners in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav confirmed the newly-appointed DC heads will preview what they're calling the DCU Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters. Gunn and Safran revealed their 10-project slate in January, announcing the lineup includes the Gunn-directed reboot Superman: Legacy, the Batman and Robin father-son story The Brave and the Bold, and Max Original series spinning out of Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.
"[Gunn] was telling us about the script and what the DC characters meant to him and how when he grew up, what those characters were his family," Zaslav said during the Warner Bros. CinemaCon presentation, promising convention goers and the press in attendance will learn more about Gunn and Safran's unified DC Universe that will tell a long-term interconnected story across film, television, and animation.
Along with upcoming DC films The Flash (in theaters June 16th), Blue Beetle (August 18th), and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (December 20th), Zaslav told exhibitors that Warner Bros. is bringing 16 movies exclusively to theaters in 2023, including the live-action Barbie, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Meg 2: The Trench, Dune: Part Two, and Wonka. (Follow along with live coverage here.)
"We want to do more than 20 [movies]," Zaslav said. "We're all in over the next couple of years with motion pictures and storytelling."
Warners will conclude its CinemaCon day with an exclusive advance screening of The Flash at 4:45 p.m. Las Vegas time.
That movie, which sees scarlet speedster Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) race into the DC multiverse by way of Speed Force time travel, "resets everything, which then goes into Blue Beetle, which is totally disconnected and can be a part of the DCU, which goes into Aquaman, which leads into Superman: Legacy, our first big project," Gunn told press when revealing DC Studios' first 10 projects in January. "But the one thing that we can promise is that everything from our first project forward will be canon and will be connected. We're using some actors from the past, we're not using other actors from the past, but everything from that moment forward will be connected and consistent."
Previously announced movies include Superman: Legacy, The Authority, The Brave and the Bold, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and Swamp Thing. For the soon-to-be Max streaming service, television series include Creature Commandos, Waller, Booster Gold, Lanterns, and Paradise Lost.
