Knowing that James Gunn and Peter Safran are guiding the new pathway for DC Studios on its storytelling, rather than reacting to trends, is comforting to know. What gives me an even greater confidence in these plans is that, according to Gunn, the ratings threshold of these projects will have the tonal flexibility of being what they need to be, while still being tied to the bigger picture. He explained:
“We’re gonna give every story what it deserves. I mean, some things we know. ‘Superman’ is definitely something we would like to be PG-13. I’m sure that it is. Other things like the ‘Waller’ TV show is a little bit more mature. We have other things that are a little more tame towards young women or kids that are still within this world, but kind of feeds everything back into the Supermans and the Braves and the Bolds.”
If this slate goes according to plan, then this is where I believe DC Studios can do what the Marvel Cinematic Universe can’t. With the MCU being under the Disney banner, their projects share a uniformity that mostly aims towards a PG-13 demographic, albeit with an exception every now and then (“Daredevil”). It sounds like Gunn and Safran are committed to giving their creative team room to develop something like “Waller” into what it is, rather than what it has to be.
While I’m excited to see how closely these two are going to work with these creative teams, there’s an important industry shift that’s likely going to affect whether these projects come out according to the pre-planned schedule.