James Gunn has been quite open about why certain choices have been made regarding the new DC Studios movie universe, and today he offered some additional insight into the decision to not redo certain origin stories. Projects like Superman, Brave and the Bold, and Lanterns will take place in a world where heroes like Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern already exist, and on Threads, Gunn responded to user shubhang.fearless after they asked why he was overlooking more traditional origin stories.
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The original question reads, “James why are you overlooking origin stories? Those make us connect with the characters well at emotional level. And your choices of so niche characters to headline their own movie like Sgt. Rock or Swamp Thing makes it look like you’re making the DCU for hardcore comicbook readers and not for the general audience. @jamesgunn”
Gunn then responded, writing, “I’m not telling Batman and Superman’s origin stories again because everyone knows them. And don’t put Swamp Thing in the corner. That’s a project in development we’ve actually announced, and he’s an incredibly well known character with not only some of the greatest comics of all time but a successful film series and his own TV show, something that could be said of only a very small handful of DC characters.”
There’s a subjective element when it comes to labeling characters as only for a hardcore audience, and that also is the case when it comes to assigning characters to tiers and that sort of thing, so none of this is an exact science. That said, what isn’t subjective is the number of times we’ve seen Superman and Batman’s origins represented on the big and small screen, so there’s much less need to retread those same stories once more. Even if someone isn’t really into superheroes, they likely already know the key points of both origin stories.
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There’s also sometimes a jump to origin stories as the only way to introduce a character to the masses, and that is simply not the case, even in comics. Sometimes it just makes more sense to hit the ground running and establish things on the go as opposed to stepping all the way back to the beginning, and some series (like Something is Killing the Children) continue to experience immense success with this model while still revealing new details about their lead characters (Erica Slaughter in this case) along the way.
This is especially true of a film or television show, which has less real estate in which to establish things. If we’re spending so much time establishing things that many of the viewers already know, there’s an argument to be made that we’re essentially wasting precious time, time that could be better spent on moving things forward or on establishing more depth in character development.
At this point, both of those origin stories are ones I’m good with not seeing for a long time on the big or small screen unless it’s completely reshaping things, like say in the Absolute Universe. If you’re giving me Absolute Batman, sure, I’m in, but the one I’ve seen 20 times is very much a pass.
Where do you stand on using DC’s origin stories in film and TV? You can talk all things DC with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb and on Bluesky @knightofoa!
