DC's James Gunn Gives Update on Creature Commandos
The Max animated series is the first project from James Gunn and Peter Safran's DC Studios.
Creature Commandos just got a monster update. The DC Studios animated series — about a black ops team of monstrous prisoners assembled by Amanda Waller (The Suicide Squad's Viola Davis) — is created and written by James Gunn, who heads DC Studios as co-chairman and co-CEO with his Superman producer Peter Safran. During a Q&A on Instagram's Threads, Gunn gave an update on the series, which is on track to launch as "aperitif" to the new DC Universe canon later in 2024.
"Animatics and all recording done," Gunn wrote of the animated storyboards that are made as part of the pre-visualization process, before finalized animation begins. "Waiting on the first animated cuts."
Actors cast in the series include Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.), Indira Varma (Bride of Frankenstein), David Harbour (Eric Frankenstein), Alan Tudyk (Doctor Phosphorous), Zoë Chao (Nina Mazursky), Maria Bakalova (Princess Ilana Rostovic), and Sean Gunn (G.I. Robot and Weasel). The Creature Commandos first appeared in the World War II-era anthology comic Weird War Tales #93 in 1980, but modern versions of the team have imagined the monsters as agents of S.H.A.D.E. (Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive).
Gunn wrote the seven-episode series, which Tudyk has likened to Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel Studios.
"It's so so good. It's what James does very well. Where he brings people together, like Guardians of the Galaxy," Tudyk said during a recent convention appearance. "Where you're like 'How do a raccoon and [a tree] — what the hell? Who are all these people?' And then they're just the best group. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to when you see that."
"I look at the one-sheet, and it's like, Frankenstein's in there. And some chick, she's got a fish head, she's got water on her head. And I'm like, 'Where do all of these [characters]... how do they fit together?" he continued. "And then I'm like a guy who looks a lot like Ghost Rider, but it's not, it's Doctor Phosphorous. It's DC, a whole different thing, and it's the best thing I've read."
Creature Commandos will premiere later in 2024 on Max. Gunn's live-action Superman officially launches the new DCU when it soars into theaters on July 11, 2025.