Riddle me this: I am vengeance. I am the night. My enemy is a bird who cannot fly, yet our franchise is taking flight. Who am I? If you guessed Robert Pattinson’s Batman, you would be correct — but instead of Matt Reeves’ Epic Crime Saga, The Batman movie might have launched the DC Universe. As the heads of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran are shepherding the just-relaunched DCU, which counts the animated Creature Commandos and the upcoming Superman movie and Peacemaker season 2 as canon.
While DC Studios produced HBO’s The Penguin with Reeves — as well as the director’s upcoming sequel, The Batman Part II — those projects are Elseworlds, the label used for anything set outside of Gunn and Safran’s new DCU continuity.
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“I’ve contemplated it,” Gunn answered when asked if he’s considered bringing Pattinson’s Batman into the DCU on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I contemplate everything, we talk about everything.”
“You’d be an idiot not [to consider it],” Gunn continued, adding DC Studios is “committed” to telling Elseworlds stories and DCU stories.
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“I want the freedom to tell Elseworlds stories. We want to be able to tell a story in which Superman is very different [from his DCU counterpart],” Gunn said. “We want to play with these characters in different ways. One of the things I love about DC over Marvel comic books is that those things are much more plentiful — there’s many more Elseworlds stories, there’s many more presentations of Wonder Woman, and Batman, and Superman, especially, that you see them showing up in different ways in different Elseworlds stories. I think that’s part of the fun of DC. Watchmen is the result of DC telling a story that’s outside of the continuity of DC Comics.”
DC’s Elseworlds imprint has published comics re-imagining the company’s characters in radically different interpretations set outside the main continuity, like a vampiric Batman, a Soviet Superman, and a western Wonder Woman.
Reeves’ The Batman Epic Crime Saga spans The Batman and The Penguin, plus the Paul Dano-penned prequel comic The Riddler: Year One. DC and HBO have been developing multiple television projects set in that universe, including the since-scrapped Gotham PD and Arkham Asylum, while the DCU Batman and Robin will debut in The Brave and the Bold film from The Flash director Andy Muschietti.
The DCU Batman will be further along in his career as a caped crusader: Brave and the Bold is an “unusual father-son story,” with a Bruce Wayne who has fathered a son and established the Bat-Family of costumed crime-fighters that typically includes Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Robin (Tim Drake and Damian Wayne), and the Red Hood (Jason Todd).
“It’s a story of Damian Wayne, who’s Batman’s actual son that he didn’t know existed for the first eight to ten years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin,” Gunn said in 2023. “He’s my favorite Robin. It’s based on the Grant Morrison comic run, which is one of my favorite Batman runs.” Safran teased that Brave and the Bold is “going to feature other members of the extended Bat-Family. Just because we feel like they’ve been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long.”
“Everything in DC film, television, and video games is under our umbrella, whether it’s DCU or Elseworlds,” Gunn explained on Threads. That includes future spinoffs from the Batman universe and the Black Superman movie from Ta-Nehisi Coates and J.J. Abrams that has been in development since before Gunn and Safran were appointed as heads of DC Studios (formerly DC Films).
The DC Studios slate of projects set in the DCU include the HBO series Lanterns, the Max series Waller and Booster Gold, and the films Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Swamp Thing, The Authority, and The Brave and the Bold. Gunn and Reeves will both produce Dynamic Duo, an animated feature from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation about the Robins Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, although it’s unclear whether that project is DCU canon or Elseworlds.
The Batman Part II is set to open in theaters Oct. 2, 2026.
