James Gunn Reveals the 10 New DC Projects on the way including Superman Legacy

 DC Studios Co-Chairmen and CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran announced plans for their first 10 film and television projects under the new DC banner they lead across film, television, and animation.

Gunn and Safran are designing and implementing a long-term interconnected story for the iconic franchise and characters, and today shared details on “Chapter 1” focused on “Gods and Monsters” with five new films and five television series for HBO Max already in development.

All ten of the new projects are set within the same shared DC Universe and will frequently share characters. Head over to DC.com for all the details from the announcement, deep dives into character and story, a Q&A with Gunn and Safran, and more.

Creature Commandos – a seven-episode animated show in which Amanda Waller creates a black ops team out of monstrous prisoners; Gunn wrote all the episodes of the first season

Waller – starring Viola Davis, this series features Team Peacemaker and will be written by Christal Henry (Watchmen) and Jeremy Carver (Supernatural)

Superman: Legacy – written by Gunn, the film will hit theaters on July 11, 2025, and focus on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.

Booster Gold – Booster Gold uses basic technology from the future to pretend to be a superhero in present day

Lantern – this enormous TV event series follows intergalactic cops John Stewart and Hal Jordan as they uncover a dark mystery

The Authority – DC’s WildStorm characters will join the DCU as members of The Authority take matters into their own hands to do what they believe is right

The Brave and the Bold – the DCU will introduce its Batman and Robin in this unusual father-son story inspired by Grant Morrison’s comic series

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow – this science fiction adventure, which will be based on Tom King’s amazing, award-winning recent comics stories, presents a Supergirl viewers are not used to seeing

Swamp Thing – the film will investigate the dark origins of Swamp Thing

Paradise Lost ­– set in Themyscira, home of the Amazons and birthplace of Wonder Woman, this drama focuses on the genesis and political intrigue of an island of all women

“I think that we’ve gotten lucky with the next four movies because we have Shazam, which leads into Flash, which resets everything, which then goes into Blue Beetle, which is totally disconnected (from everything that came before) and can be a part of the DCU, which goes into Aquaman, which leads into Superman: Legacy, our first big project,” he explains. “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.”

A key part of DC’s film and television on the near horizon amounts to a combination of both new and already established. Along with new projects like Superman: Legacy, Creature Commandos, The Brave and the Bold and The Authority, fans can expect a few highly anticipated follow-ups, like director Matt Reeves’ The Batman – Part II, which got a release date today of October 3, 2025.

One of the smartest things I’ve ever heard anyone working with DC films has ever said and probably one of the best lessons Gunn could have brought over. This is what all of us should want to hear pic.twitter.com/n4IfBQBhZV

— AquaAnne Loves Comics! 💥 (@AnneComics) January 31, 2023

It’s a lot to keep track of, even for superfans like us, so Gunn and Safran recently answered some questions about everything brewing at DC Studios to help give fans a sense of how it will all come together.

On why a shared universe is the right approach going forward…

Peter Safran: DC has had great individual movies over the years, but we think that what the audience really appreciates and needs is a connected universe. It minimizes audience confusion and it maximizes their connectivity to it across all the platforms.

James Gunn: I think that’s something that people love. I know that from my own experience. But again, we do have Elseworlds tales we’re telling. The bar for an Elseworlds tale is going to be higher than the bar for a movie within the DCU. Not that we’re not always going to have a high bar, but it’s got to be something really special for us to tell that story outside of our regular continuity and to spend the money to make it.

On how many movies they’re aiming for each year…

Safran: Probably two movies and two HBO Max series per year.

About how they decide which medium to use for which project…

Gunn: It’s all story-based. To us, storytelling is 100% king. So, if it’s a story that’s more complicated, like the Lanterns or Waller story, or has more of an independent TV vibe, like Booster Gold, then that’s more suited for television. It has to do with tone, storytelling and if it’s something that we can tell in two hours and ten minutes. Or is it something that we need seven, eight or nine hours for?

Safran: We certainly debated a couple of these projects and where they fit better, but ultimately, this is where we landed.

On how they decide on ratings and whether something should be live action or animated…

Gunn: It depends on the story. We’re going to give every story what it deserves. Some things we know. Superman is definitely something we know we’d like to be PG-13, so I’m going to make sure it is. Other things, like the Waller TV show, are a little bit more mature. And we have other things that are aimed a bit more at young women or at kids that are still within this world.

Safran: And in terms of animation, it’s sometimes just a fun way to introduce characters or introduce stories that would frankly be too expensive to be done otherwise.

Gunn: Creature Commandos is a good example of that.

Safran: With Creature Commandos, they’re all digital characters.

On whether they’re planning any big, Justice League-type crossover events…

Gunn: Everything’s crossing over throughout. These characters are all interacting throughout the different stories.

Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean always. Brave and the Bold may just be Batman, Robin and the characters involved in that. But I know a lot of other times these characters cross around. In Creature Commandos, one of the main characters shows up in Waller.

About the role of that games might play in the shared universe…

Gunn: It’s not like we’re going to have the Superman movie come out and have this Superman game come out. It’s more like we’ll have the Superman film come out, then maybe two years later, we have the Supergirl movie coming out. So, what’s the story in between there? Is there a Krypto game that we can play that comes in between them? Something that’s still set in the world with these characters, but is its own thing. We want to give the prominence to games that they deserve.

On the difference between DC Studios projects…

Gunn: Even though this is all a connected universe, it’s really important to me that the individual writers and directors on the projects give their own self-expression to it, just like they do in the comics. Everything doesn’t always look the same. Everything doesn’t always have the same expression. Different artists bring remarkably different looks, feels and tones. This is not the Gunnverse.

I want each project to have the feelings of the individual artist that’s working on it and to give them a lot of freedom—as long as it works—to create something special because what I’ve found through Marvel, what wasn’t exciting was when movies were tonally the same. What was exciting was when you had something like Guardians come out and everyone was like, “How is this raccoon going to be dealing with this God of Thunder? That’s going to be weird.”

But then when you actually see the mash-up happen, that’s what makes it so fun. So, to see seemingly tonally incongruent things come together is part of the fun of all this.