Booster Gold TV Series Explained By James Gunn
As part of DC's film and television slate presentation today, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn revealed that the greatest hero you've never heard of, is finally coming to TV. Booster Gold, the fan-favorite character who has had both a TV show and a movie peter out in early development, is finally set to make his way to the screen. The time-traveling superhero, who previously had appearances in Smallville and DC's Legends of Tomorrow, will be the star attraction in a series set for HBO Max. No specific production or airdate has yet been announced, but the new DC Universe will kick off with Gunn's Superman movie in 2025.
Gunn described Booster as a "Total fan favorite." Then, he went on to say Booster was "a loser from the future, who uses his basic future technology to come back to today and pretend to be a superhero." But that is a less sympathetic view of the character than the series will be taking.
Since his introduction, Booster Gold has had two major iterations of his heroic career. In the early days, and for most of his existence, he was depicted as a crass opportunist, shilling products and cracking jokes. Later, he was reinvented as a covert Time Master, using his bad reputation to sow doubt that he could possibly have been entrusted with such a cosmically important job.
"Think of it basically as a story of a superheroes imposter syndrome," Gunn explained. "And how do you deal with that? How does he try to use this future technology to be loved by people today? And what is really the base of that and it's a character study. that's going to be a very different type of show. and we are talking to an actor about this right now and I think that's going to happen."
That sounds like the series will draw more from the first volume of Booster Gold, in which he tried to adjust to life in the past, and questioned whether the people around him were really his friends, or just there because he had money. While the "Time Master" version of Booster would have appeared in a planned eighth season of Legends of Tomorrow if it had not been cancelled, a TV adaptation set up at SYFY nearly a decade ago would have taken a more grounded approach, similar to what Gunn is proposing.
No hints as to who might be in talks to play Booster Gold, a character who has previously been depicted by Days of Our Lives star Eric Martsolf and Scrubs veteran Donald Faison.
Are you excited to see Booster Gold come to live-action again? Sound off in the comments below, or hit up @russburlingame on Twitter to talk all things Boosterrific.