As Superman Hits Theaters, James Gunn Is Reportedly Eyeing At Least Two TV Spinoffs
At least two characters from James Gunn's Superman — which is now in theaters and officially launches the film side of the new DCU — are being eyed to headline TV spinoffs.
The Superman movie stars David Corenswet (of TV's The Politician and Lady in the Lake) as the titular Kal-El aka Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, while Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) plays Daily Planet journo Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult (The Great) fills the role of supervillain Lex Luthor.
The cast also includes Edi Gathegi (The Blacklist) as Mister Terrific, Isabel Merced (The Last of Us) as Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion (The Rookie) as Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Skyler Gisondo (The Righteous Gemstones) as Jimmy Olsen, Wendell Pierce (Elsbeth) as Perry White, Maria Gabriela de Faria (Besieged) as The Engineer, recent Duster guest star Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, Anthony Carrigan (Barry) as Metamorpho, Victoria's Secret angel Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher and Terence Rosemore (Outer Banks) as Otis.
Already, we know that Fillion's Guy Gardner and his can't-unsee-it bowl cut will pop up in both Season 2 of HBO Max's Peacemaker and HBO's upcoming Lanterns series starring Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre.
But a DCU overview published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday night reported that Gunn is considering TV spinoffs for Superman characters like Gathegi's Mister Terrific and Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen.
Gunn and his DC Studios co-CEO Peter Saffran announced earlier this year that the plan is ultimately to release two live-action films and one animated film per year, plus two live-action and two animated TV series per year.
Gunn more recently shared an update on a few TV projects, saying that (as of May 22), "I'm about to wrap Peacemaker [Season 2, premiering Aug. 21]" while "Lanterns is halfway through filming. We're going to see early episodes of that soon."
He also said that development on the Wonder Woman-adjacent Paradise Lost series is "slow-moving" yet "moving along," and, curiously, "Then there's another TV show that's my favorite thing in all of this, that is hopefully getting made soon" but "has not been announced at all."
Gunn said that Peacemaker's sophomore season is a key component of the new DCU's first "chapter", which is dubbed "Gods and Monsters."
"I wouldn't say Creature Commandos" — the adult animated series that streamed on HBO Max this winter, and technically launched the new DCU — "is important, but Peacemaker and Superman are both pretty important in terms of getting to the bigger story," he asserted.