Among the news that James Gunn has been cooking up a new slate for DC Studios – now officially titled the DCU – there have been questions about how exactly his plans will align with the previous decade of DC movies, and what it means for the long-gestating projects finally hitting our screens this year. Now, we have some answers. In his video explaining the first slate he’s cooked up with producer Peter Safran, Gunn has spoken about how it’s all going to work – and it seems the much-delayed The Flash movie will be key to closing out the old era, and kicking off the new.
In his spiel, Gunn says that The Flash, directed by Andy Muschietti and due for release this June after plenty of setbacks, “resets the entire DC Universe”. That’s not a total shock, given the reality-bending Flashpoint storyline is expected to be a major part of the movie, but it’s interesting to hear that there will at least be some narrative thread that connects the previous Zack Snyder era of DC movies with the upcoming Gods And Monsters plan. Gunn also named The Flash as “a fantastic movie that I really love”, and claimed that the four DC movies arriving this year – Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom – will dovetail right into his and Safran’s slate.
It suggests, then, a not-entirely-clean slate going forward, but a significant shift that will result in a more coherent DCU in the coming years. Will The Flash still feature Michael Keaton’s Batman? Is it moving us into a universe where the Batgirl movie actually came out? And will the Ezra Miller factor amid all this cause any more ructions for Muschietti’s movie? Stay tuned.