With Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’s release date approaching, we are coming to the end of the current DC cinematic universe. The newly rebooted franchise, under James Gunn and Peter Safran, won’t see its first big screen outing until the Superman: Legacy release date in 2025, meaning we’ll see almost none of the upcoming DC movies for a year and a half. It’s a pretty long stretch compared to similar franchises, but James Gunn doesn’t mind, and he even thinks the hiatus will be a good thing.
A fan asked James Gunn on Threads if he thought the “lack of content” over the next 18 months would damage DC as a brand, but Gunn responded that he did not. In fact, considering that DC is resetting everything, the time off will actually be good.
I think it’s great for us for the reset.
While some sort of “out of sight, out of mind” fear is perhaps understandable, this is DC we’re talking about. Superman and Batman will always be relevant, so it’s hard to imagine people just not caring about new movies with them just because it’s been a while.
And as Gunn himself says, it may actually be good. Putting some space between the old Superman and the new Superman isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it could give the audience themselves a chance to reset.
Plus, it’s not like we’ll be getting no DC content at all in 2024. There are several other projects in the DCU's Gods and Monsters chapter in development, and some of them, both connected to the new DCU and not, are expected. There is one DC movie coming out in 2024 in the former of the Joker sequel, but obviously that qualifies as an "Elseworlds" project, i.e. it's not connected to Gunn's larger franchise.
The first part of the new DCU, the animated Creature Commandos series, is planned to hit next year, and several other DC projects, like The Batman spinoff Pengiun series, which was in development before Gunn arrived on the scene, are also still coming next year.
The movies will certainly be the flagship of the DCU, to be sure. They are the most important elements of the new franchise, but at this point, it’s clear there will be a lot of eyes on James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy. Some fans are excited and some are upset that the previous universe is being discarded, but regardless, people will be watching this movie. It doesn’t really matter when it comes out.
And if any sort of audience management is needed, if there’s a fear that not everybody will understand that the DCU has been reset, the powers that be have a year and a half before that movie comes out to do the marketing necessary to get people excited. Will it all work? Who the heck knows, but it’s going to be very exciting to watch.
