Though the news arrived on 1 April we were, for once, actually hoping that word of Warner Bros. deciding to shelve Ava DuVernay and James Wan's planned DC movies was all a big joke. Sadly, it's true: DuVernay's New Gods and Wan's planned Aquaman spin-off The Trench are off the development schedule indefinitely.
"As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward," Warner Bros. and DC said in a statement. "We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future."
DuVernay has been working on New Gods in the background of other projects for three years now – writing the script with Eisner-winning DC veteran King. Created and designed by Jack Kirby in 1971, the New Gods are natives of the twin planets of New Genesis and Apokolips. New Genesis is an idyllic planet ruled by the Highfather, while Apokolips is a dystopia filled with machinery and fire pits ruled by the tyrant Darkseid (aka the chair-dwelling villain from Zack Snyder's Justice League.) New Genesis and Apokolips call themselves gods, living outside of normal time and space in a realm known as the Fourth World. Kirby's creations have gone on to spread across a variety of other DC titles and the most recent was part of The New 52 in 2011. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Darkseid popping up in Justice League has the studio wanting to leave room between projects featuring the character.
DuVernay took to Twitter to mourn the end – at least for now – of the project. She still, however, is sticking with the DC universe as executive producer of new series Naomi at the CW.
Wan, working alongside producer Safran, had been figuring out the horror-centric spin-off from Aquaman since 2019, with writers Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald on script patrol. While Wan wasn't looking to actually direct, he was a producer and had been aiming to have this on screen before the Aquaman sequel, which is still in active development. As the statement mentions, both New Gods and The Trench could one day pop back up, but for now they're in limbo.