James Gunn Wants His DC Universe to Go All Over the Place Tonally

With the release of Creature Commandos this week, DC Studios wants audiences to know every project will be unique to its heroes and villains. With the slate of titles that are going to make up the new era of Warner Bros. superhero franchise house, studio head and director James Gunn doesn’t want people to think projects will be specific to his filmmaking MO as its been known.

In an interview with Variety, Gunn explained that Creature Commandos is just a small taste of what to expect. “I just liked the idea of a soft intro to our universe in which metahumans exist, monsters exist, magic exists, and incredibly complicated political situations exist,” he said. “And we see what the world of the DCU is through an animated perspective where it costs as much to create a battlefield as it does to create a kitchen—well, not exactly, but not as dissimilar as it would be in a film.”

What DC Studios is cooking is not a set menu, however. “One of the main things I want to establish is that you can do anything at DC Studios,” Gunn continued, “We can make complete family fare. We can make something that’s for general audiences, like Superman. We can make something that’s violent and sexual, like this—which I didn’t think was that violent and sexual; Peacemaker is both more violent and more sexual—but I want every project to have its own voice. It isn’t about creating a world in which everything is all sex and violence. It’s about creating a world in which we can tell the story about, you know, one type of character in different genres.”

It will be interesting to see how the franchise feast turns out once more creators get in the kitchen at DC Studios. For the moment we’ll see how Creature Commandos and Peacemaker’s violence and sex lead into Gunn’s likely more family friendly Superman, Lanterns, and Dynamic Duo projects.

Creature Commandos premieres this week on Max.

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