DC Boss James Gunn Details New Shows Including ‘Waller’ Starring Viola Davis & ‘Lanterns’
James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios, has a plan for the next eight to 10 years, and it involves several TV shows, including a spinoff of a popular HBO Max one and another that we’ve been hearing about in development for a while.
“As many of you know, DC has been disconnected in film and television for a long time. It’s one of our jobs, mine and Peter [Safran]’s, is to come in and make sure the DCU is connected in film, television, gaming, and animation, that the characters are consistent, played by the same actors, and it works within one story,” Gunn says. Anything outside of that will be labeled DC Elseworlds. Watch the video below for more.
Among the series are Waller, Lanterns, Paradise Lost, Booster Gold, and Creature Commandos.
For those who have enjoyed watching Viola Davis as Amanda Waller in the DCU (including Peacemaker), she’ll be seen in her own show, Waller, written by Christal Henry and Jeremy Carver. It will feature members of Team Peacemaker and Gunn described it as “a fantastic story that’s out of this world.” Waller will also be key to the seven-episode animated Creature Commandos, written by Gunn; she’s the one to create a black ops team out of monstrous prisoners. Its characters will move in and out of animation, usually with the same actor for voice and live action.
Here are just a few of our plans. Up, up, and away! #DCStudios #DCU @DCComics pic.twitter.com/8XNDNLUEPq
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) January 31, 2023
The Green Lanterns series we’ve been hearing about is now a TV event, Lanterns. It specifically follows two Green Lanterns, John Stewart and Hal Jordan, with a few others in it as well. Gunn described it as “True Detective with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over precinct Earth. In it, they discover a terrifying mystery that ties into our larger story of the DCU.”
Paradise Lost is set in Themyscira, the home of the Amazons and birthplace of Wonder Woman. The drama series focuses on the genesis and political intrigue of an island of all women. According to Gunn, “it’s almost like Game of Thrones with Westeros but with all of the inhabitants of Paradise Island.”
And finally, Booster Gold is based on a unique and lower-tiered hero created in 1986. This popular cult hero from the comics is “a loser from the future who uses future technology to come back to present day and become a superhero so that people will love him,” Gunn says. “It is basically the superhero story of imposter syndrome.”
