James Gunn Reveals What's Still Canon in the DCU and Discusses ‘Creature Commandos,’ the Next Batman, ‘Superman,’ and More [Exclusive] (2024)

Now that we're weeks away from the animated series Creature Commandos, we're officially kicking off the brand-new DC Universe with Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters. Since the brand's massive shift announcement in 2022, co-CEO James Gunn has been nonstop busy between his involvement on this series and 2025's Superman and Peacemaker Season 2. Considering the multi-hyphenate took over what's now heralded as the DCU after helming one of Marvel Studio's most epic superhero trilogies, it's little wonder this new universe draws so many comparisons and expectations — but in this interview, Gunn sets the record straight.

Creature Commandos, which features the vocal talents of David Harbour, Zoë Chao, Alan Tudyk, Frank Grillo, Sean Gunn, Viola Davis, and Indira Varma (all of whom could make live-action appearances as their series characters), is the first official project that will restart the on-screen DCU, but fans shouldn't be expecting the same formulaic roadmap as the MCU. Yes, there is an outline of which characters Gunn intends to explore, but nothing is going to be churned out without the perfect script.

In this conversation with Collider's Steve Weintraub, Creature Commandos showrunner Dean Lorey and Gunn tell us, "It all comes down to the writing." If the screenplay isn't perfect, the project isn't moving forward. When asked about his iteration of Batman, Gunn says there's no pressure to meet a timeline-specific date. He laments the idea of filmmakers wasting potential on stories with no third act, and drops Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow as the prime example of a green-lit series that was script-ready. The DC duo also discuss the deeply emotional narrative of Creature Commandos, how "this show, at its core, is really a tragedy," and addresses fan questions like what's still canon from before, what's with Rick Flag Sr.'s hair, and tons more.

Where to Watch 'Creature Commandos'

COLLIDER: Gentlemen, I watched the whole series, and I'm a little bit upset I don't have more. Congrats on the series.

JAMES GUNN: Thank you, man. Thank you.

I'm gonna start with two questions from social media. Is there a distribution plan for Creature Commandos for those countries where Max isn't yet available?

GUNN: Yeah. I got a list yesterday of all the places where Creature Commandos is, and it’s going to be in tons of other countries. There are a couple of major ones that we’re still trying to figure out, but it is in most larger-sized countries and European countries and South American countries and Asian countries right now.

Why is Rick Flag's hair white in Creature Commandos but black in Superman ?

GUNN: Because that motherfucker Frank Grillo was shooting Tulsa King when we were shooting Peacemaker. We were going to originally do the white, he was going to dye it white, and then I saw somebody the other day say, “Well, what about temporary hair dye? Haven't you ever heard of temporary hair dye?” And I’m like, “It looks like shit. Yes, I’ve heard of that, and it looks like absolute shit when you’re putting fake gray on somebody’s very dark black hair.”

In the future, could his hair be white, or are you gonna do black?

GUNN: It could be, but as you see from the series, Rick Flag Sr. is an incredibly vain man and easily swayed by women and his ego being attended to, so I think the guy dyes his hair. I think on Season 2 of Peacemaker, we got a dyed beard, and we also have a dyed hair, which is Rick Flag.

What's Still Canon in the DCU?

A lot of people are wondering what's canon in the new DC. As far as I can tell, it's The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker . Is that true? What can you guys say about that?

GUNN: Well, it's whatever we mention in anything. [Laughs] Listen, Peacemaker is pretty easy. Peacemaker Season 1 is basically canon outside of the appearance of the Justice League at the end, which you'll see something about that in Peacemaker Season 2. Suicide Squad is probably a little bit looser. We know that Rick Flag Sr. is angry because his son was killed by Peacemaker, so we know that situation happened in the past, we have something to refer to to think of what it might be like that that happened, but that exists as canon because it was mentioned in Creature Commandos , not necessarily because it existed in Suicide Squad . I think of Suicide Squad and Peacemaker as pretty unreliable memories of what happened in the DCU.

James, you wrote Creature Commandos before as a spec thing and before you knew you were gonna be the co-head of DC.

GUNN: It wasn't exactly a spec thing. I talked to Peter Girardi from Warner Bros. Animation, and he was like, “You should do something in animation.” He says, “What do you want to do?” And I'm like, “I think I wanna do Creature Commandos.” So, I went and wrote the episodes. So, it was sort of spec, but it wasn't really.

Once you got to be the co-head of DC and you realized what your eight to 10-year arc was gonna be, did these scripts change at all as a result of what you realized was gonna happen?

GUNN: Minimally, but not a lot. A lot of what DC is, and the fun for me, really, is in the world-building, not just the story-building. I don't think of DCU as being, “Oh, this is a story we're telling over multiple films and TV shows about one big bad.” I don't want to have to do, as an audience member, the homework to have to see every single thing. It is more of a connected universe that exists within one place, which is the DCU, which will have differences depending on who the artists and the directors and the production designers are that are making the shows.

I think when people see the finale of Creature Commandos , the first thing they're gonna say is, “When can I get more,” which is what I said. What have you guys been discussing when it comes to Season 2?

DEAN LOREY: We’ve discussed that we’d love to do it. And as you can see from the end of Season [1], it’s pretty clear the direction, or at least the people that we’d like to go forward with in Season [2]. So obviously, we think there’s a lot of story to tell. Part of it is, will James ever have time to write it?

GUNN: I will not. [Laughs]

LOREY: And will James pick it up?

It obviously does also come down to how many people are actually watching it.

GUNN: Exactly. That's exactly true. Also, we might decide that we want to do something different with Creature Commandos. We might want to go off and make the Creature Commandos movie. We might want to do something different. I just know that I would love to have some of the same people involved, like Dean. I kicked the ball, but then Dean ran with it, kicking it around to BobbyPills and Rick Morales and all the other people who were involved in the telling of the story, and it was a wonderful situation. I just haven’t had many situations where I was able to write something, give it to some people, and then they brought me back this beautiful work, where I was like, “Oh shit! Well, I think we can make it better here and here and here, but it's innately good.” That's not always the case. A lot of times, as a screenwriter, people would bring me something that they had directed off of what I had written, and I’d go, “I want to kill myself.”

LOREY: We had a great team.

Which Creature Commando Will Make the Live-Action Leap First?

For both of you, you never really know how something is gonna turn out. Which character or performance surprised you because it was better than you expected?

LOREY: I've been consistently saying that G.I. Robot is my favorite character, but I have to say that that performance by Sean Gunn also really surprised me because, going into that, I didn't have a sense of what he was gonna bring to it. Was he gonna go in a more robo direction or what? And I was glad that he did that. He focused more on humanity, which I really liked. The other person who really, again, I didn't know how he was gonna approach it was David Harbour for Frankenstein. When you just say the character's name, you imagine a certain thing, sort of a throwback to the old movies, but he brought a very intelligent, precise, unexpected take on it that I loved, and came as a surprise to me.

GUNN: There were so many for me. Yes, Harbour as Frankenstein, Grillo just being able to deliver the whole time, Zoë [Chao], who was fantastic in the show, and Indira [Varma], who's fantastic as The Bride. Then also, Michael Rooker is Sam in Episode 3 — such a pathetic, sad guy and so different from the characters that Rooker has normally done. There are just some great performances on the show throughout.

LOREY: Peter as Dr. Frankenstein.

GUNN: Oh yeah! Peter Serafinowicz as Dr. Frankenstein is great. Alan Tudyk as Will Magnus — his performance is based on Mike Nichols, who he did a play with one time. There are just so many fun things in there.

There's no weak link in terms of any of the performances, but I think the one that is gonna really resonate because it really resonated with me was David Harbour’s Frankenstein. The performance, the writing, everything about it is just so good, and I think he's gonna be the one that people are immediately going to ask, “What's the future of Frankenstein, and when is he making the jump to live-action?”

GUNN: I hope that we do it. I know David is up for it and I know we had a great time working with him, so hopefully we can do that soon.

One of the things about the show that I didn't really expect was I knew it would be funny, I knew it would be violent, but I didn't expect it to be so emotional. Can you talk about that aspect? I really cared about these characters, and there's a lot that happens, especially some backstories that are heartbreaking.

GUNN: That's the trick of the show, and I think that's the thing that works the best. I think that's where Dean and myself and Rick and BobbyPills came together really strongly in understanding that this show, at its core, is really a tragedy. We can't keep ourselves too safe from the sadness, so if we're gonna go overboard with the violence and we're gonna go overboard with the sex, then we have to really be willing to go there with the tragic nature of it.

One of the challenging things for me, one of the freedoms of the show for me, was to be able to tell a story without sentimentality. So, Guardians [of the Galaxy], at the end of the day, we know those are all good characters that are probably gonna have pretty good lives. Even when there's a sacrifice, like Yondu’s sacrifice in Vol. 2, it's so meaningful and so touching and so poignant. But in Creature Commandos, there's death, and there's sacrifice, and it's meaningless sometimes, and to be able to tell that type of story with these characters is a much rawer, and in some ways, authentic type of storytelling that I enjoyed doing with these guys.

I've had few more creatively invigorating experiences than Episode 4, which is Weasel's story. It was really wonderful. And we got into it. I mean, we really got into telling that, especially that last bit, which is also a good place to shout out Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell, who did the score and did such an incredible job.

LOREY: They were great.

Did you want to add anything, Dean, especially about balancing the different tones?

LOREY: For me, it's just trying to be truthful in the moment to each tone. On Harley Quinn in Season 1, we had the death of Poison Ivy, and there was a funeral for Ivy. We worked on it for a while, but because it was primarily a comedy, we had written jokes in it and all of that, and I just kept stripping jokes out of it, going, “It feels wrong. I feel like we need to take this seriously, even though we're a comedy.” And we did, and the more that we did, the deeper it got and the more that you cared about all the characters as a result. So, here, this was a really good opportunity to kind of double down on that. If it's a sad, down moment, embrace it, and if it's a meaningless death, embrace that fact. That's how we balanced everything, was by just being truthful to the moment in the script, and then you just sort of let everything fall where it's gonna fall. But I think if the audience feels like you're playing fair the whole time, they'll go with it.

"There's No Timeline for Anything" – The DCU's Batman Hinges on One Important Factor

James, as the co-guy who runs DC, I need to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind. I love Matt Reeves’ Batman — The Batman , The Penguin . I can't wait to see the sequel, but I'm also wondering when you're going to introduce your version of Batman for your version of DC.

GUNN: There's no set timeline for anything. The one thing that I've tried to make clear to people from the beginning, and the way that I hope we're different, is that everything in DC is gonna be based on the writers. Until we have a screenplay that I'm totally happy with, that movie is not going to get made, no matter what it is. We have been really fortunate with some screenplays. Supergirl [Woman of Tomorrow] came in, and just, wow, Ana [Nogueira] did such an amazing job. The Lanterns pilot came in, and now the whole Lantern series came in, and it's like, “Wow, that's wonderful, wonderful work.” There are a couple of other things that people don't know about. There are a couple of movies and TV shows that are green-lit or near-green-lit. But it's going to be based, always, on the story because, at the end of the day, if we're happy with the story that we're telling, that's what matters most. And once Brave and the Bold gets to that point, then we'll make the movie. That's really all it is.

I applaud you for this because that's how you're gonna keep the DC brand strong, by putting out stories that are worth telling.

GUNN: Frosty, I totally agree, and I think it's not only about DC, I really think it's everybody. I think that we need to go back to even back in the day when I came to Hollywood, right? Scooby Doo got green-lit because people liked the script. You may like the movie, you may not like the movie, but it got green-lit because people like the script. Today, people are green-lighting projects because an IP has to be out on a certain date which means that the screenplays are worse and movies are suffering for it. TV is thriving because there's so much good television out there, and movies are just really suffering, and it's not because people don't want to go to the box office. It's not because people don't care about that format anymore. It's because the movies aren't as good, and it all comes down to the writing. To have a director out there shooting his heart out and trying his best with something that doesn't have a third act, it's just self-sabotage, and we gotta quit doing it as an industry.

I agree. James, I know you're working on Superman and Peacemaker . Have you decided what you're gonna direct next?

GUNN: I haven't. I'm gonna start playing around. I'll be honest with you, I've got like four different things that I could do, and I'm gonna kind of jump back and forth between those things. I'm gonna see which one really speaks to me, and that's the one I'm gonna do.

Superman trailer this month or next month?

GUNN: Ha! [Laughs] Good one, Frosty!

I gotta try. Are you writing anything right now?

GUNN: No. I'm about to collapse from shooting Peacemaker and Superman in a row. I've shot 160 days or something, I calculated that in a year, I wrote 650 pages, and we've produced those 650 pages the next year. So, I am about to collapse. I am so excited we finished shooting Peacemaker in six days. I can't wait. I’m gonna go and hole up. I love editing, that's my favorite part, so I can't wait to just concentrate on that for a while.

Is Peacemaker Season 2 called Peacemaker Season 2 or Peacemaker -colon-something else?

GUNN: Peacemaker Season 2, *No Justice League Happened in Peacemaker Season 1. [Laughs]

The DCU Has Multiple R-Rated Projects in the Works

Are you currently planning R-rated DC movies?

GUNN: Yeah.

Do you envision it being a few, or do you think it's like one, and let's see how it does?

GUNN: We're not about that. We're not about “See how it does.” We've got one opportunity to take these characters and really press forward and do what we believe. I am a great believer that if we tell good, authentic stories, if a movie does well or doesn't do as well, if you keep with that same philosophy, you're going to build a universe that people are going to love and want to be a part of for a long time. So, it's not about testing out to see if this thing works, it's just about telling a story. If a story is gonna be R-rated, we're totally okay with that. If it's gonna be PG, PG-13, G, I don't care. Whatever is worthy of the story, that's what we're gonna do.

Is the R-rated script one of the things that's close to being green-lit?

GUNN: Well, I didn't say there's just one. [Laughs] There is more than one.

You look at the success of Deadpool & Wolverine , and it's clear that it works.

GUNN: That’s right. People love that character. People love that format for that thing. Peacemaker is unrated, basically. I like the idea of doing all sorts of different things.

This was a question I got on social media: does James already have a plan or studio in mind for the first DCU video game?

GUNN: Yeah. I'm gonna give you a sort of soft “yeah” on that one.

Do you want to tease any more about what the first game might be?

GUNN: No.

Another social media question: what do you think of the idea of a Daily Planet comedy series along the lines of The Office ?

GUNN: Listen, I had no more fun days on Superman than with the Daily Planet staff. We went to Macon, Georgia, we shot the Daily Planet, and it was me, David [Corenswet], Rachel [Brosnahan], Chris McDonald, Skyler [Gisondo], Mikaela [Hoover], and Wendell [Pierce], and we had some of my favorite days of shooting of all time. I see that cast doing many more things with us — I don't see that.

Creature Commandos Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2 will debut on HBO Max on December 5, and subsequent episodes will drop every Thursday.

Creature Commandos

TV-MA

Animation

Sci-Fi

Fantasy

Action

Adventure

Follows a group of military super humans composed by a human leader, a werewolf, a vampire, Frankenstein's monster and a gorgon.

Creator(s)

James Gunn

Franchise(s)

DC

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