DCU Movies & TV Shows Need to Stand on Their Own, According to James Gunn

Fans are eager for the DCU to match the scale and Marvel Cinematic Universe, but DC Studios co-chairmen James Gunn and Peter Safran are just taking it one movie at a time. They spoke about their plans at a recent press event attended by ComicBook, saying their priority was for each movie to work on its own as an independent story, whether viewers have seen other DC Comics adaptations or not. This fits in with Gunn’s past statements about avoiding post-credits scenes and other gratuitous serialization wherever possible. It’s also a strategy that has worked for many big franchises before.

“As we’ve talked about before, each one of these stories, each one of these projects that we’re doing needs to be able to stand alone,” Gunn revealed. “Somebody needs to be able to go see Superman, you know, without having to have seen Creature Commandos. Somebody’s got to watch Lanterns without necessarily having to have had to watch Superman. We have great connectivity between these things. There is a lot of connectivity between Superman and Peacemaker, including a few actors… We want to continue to have these stories connected but not completely dependent on each other.”

While DCU movie and TV shows will work on their own, Gunn assured fans that “we are telling a larger story that’ll last, you know, a little bit of time.” This is an approach we’ve seen in non-sequel serialization before — including the MCU. Connections between different titles often feel like Easter eggs at first, but make more sense later in hindsight. The reward superfans without becoming a requirement for everyone.

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At the same event, Gunn emphasized the importance of writers to the DCU, indicating his mindset when it comes to this franchise. He’s not looking to throw everything on screen as fast as possible — he wants it to feel organic and essential to the story.

“As we said, you know, a couple years ago, we’re completely a writer-driven organization, screenplay-driven company,” he said. “We’re always going to put quality over quantity. And the first thing that drives us is making sure that we have a great script. This is a brand that’s endured 80 plus year and contains some of the greatest heroes and villains that the world has ever known. Maybe even the greatest.”

The DCU kicked off in December with Creature Commandos, which is streaming now on Max. It hits the big screen for the first time on July 11th when Superman premieres in theaters.