James Gunn reminds fans no current DC Films movie is “canon” for his upcoming DC Universe
That includes Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, which won't be out until December
Aux News James Gunn
Canon is a tricky concept when you’re talking about modern superhero universes, which are typically driven as much, if not significantly more, by business decisions and box office dictates as any kind of cohesive storytelling strategy. Marvel has spent years trying to litigate with itself over what stuff counts—typically negotiating between its movie projects and its various TV shows, operating at different levels of “real.” Warner Bros.’ DC Comics movies have found themselves in an even messier position, as multiple creative heads have come and gone on what’s ostensibly supposed to be a complete story, leaving its “universe” as little more than a serious of glorified cameos from big-name stars like Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck.
DC Films co-head James Gunn has come out on social media this week to pass judgment on the canonicity of current (and future) DC movies with his upcoming plans for a DC Universe, and it’s a verdict that we can’t help but raise our eyebrows at: None of it is real, at least until next year. “Nothing is canon until Creature Commandos next year,” Gunn wrote on Threads this week, referring to his upcoming Max show as “A sort of aperitif to the DCU – & then a deeper dive into the universe with Superman: Legacy after that.” Which is a slightly strange thing to hear from a studio co-head who does, in fact, have more superhero movies coming out this year—including the upcoming Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom. (It doesn’t help that the last several DC movies, including Flash and Blue Beetle, have suffered from a certain degree of who-cares-ism regarding their position in a wider story.)
But Gunn invites fans to, well, embrace the mystery: “It’s a very human drive to want to understand everything all the time,” he wrote, “But I think its okay to be confused on what’s happening in the DCU since no one has seen anything from the DCU yet.” He also acknowledged in the post that “some actors will be playing characters they’ve played in other stories & some plot points might be consistent with plot points from the dozens of films, shows & animated projects that have come from DC in the past. But nothing is canon until CC and Legacy.” He then concluded with a merman icon, presumably as a nod to Jason Momoa’s continuing tenure as Aquaman. So that’s all cleared up!
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Considering The Flash confirmed there’s a multiverse, why not just say it’s all canon but just might/probably not be mentioned in the new series of DC films. Then there can always be future movies/series that refer to pre-”DCU” stuff.
I mean I think the problem is that audiences want to see what it is building up to like the phase 1 mcu built up to the avengers but the problem is all these new movies aren’t building up specifically.
“the problem is all these new movies aren’t building up specifically.”
Explain how you think you can know this.
I would love to see marketing data that shows this to be true or not true. Honestly, I’m not sure how you even gather that kind of feedback. I bet somewhere a whole team of poor bastards is trying to create it.
‘”Considering The Flash confirmed there’s a multiverse, why not just say it’s all canon but just might/probably not be mentioned in the new series of DC films.Then there can always be future movies/series that refer to pre-”DCU” stuff.”’Isn’t that the way they do it in the comics too?
BECAUSE IT’S NOT CANON.
Be. Cause. They. Want. To. Start. Off. Clean.
REALLY difficult to understand, particularly since stuff like this is never ever never ever never ever never done in comics.
Because The Flash isn’t canon.
That seems like a sure fire way to make sure Aquaman 2 bombs.
I hope not. The first ‘Aquaman’ is a crazy movie, and in many ways an irredeemably stupid one, but damnit if I didn’t love every goofy second of it. I hope the second one lives up to it and finds an audience that appreciates its very particular charms.
The movie left me with intense sense of whiplash but I did love the scene where they are running across the rooftops. Really cool sense of motion that felt really original. I am a big James Wan fan so I’m rooting for his success, it lets him keep cranking out quality new horror IP to be handed off to inreasingly less talented directors. Which is fucking fine.
As opposed to all the other sure fire ways it’s got going for it?
Not looking forward to the billion think-pieces discussing how Aquaman 2’s failure is “akshaully” because of toxic fandom’s misogyny towards Amber Heard and not the fact that the film, by DC’s own admission, is completely irrelevant.
Or you could just watch it as an Aquaman movie and not worry about the rest of the universe that most likely has nothing to do with the story they are telling
98% of movie goers don’t give a crap about canon… and they certainly don’t read what’s said about comic book movies before hand.
You’re right. No one in this terminally online world reads what people say about movies on social media before going to see them. That’s why Blue Beetle and The Flash did so well. Oh Wait!
i think the merman emoji was a reference to Peacemaker
When Neil Gaiman gets asked about what’s canon in regards to his adaptations, he says, “What’s in the books is canon for the books. What’s in the shows is canon for the shows. Some things are canon for both.” I think that’s the best way to look at the many DC film universes. Some things will be canon for the comics, some for the Snyderverse, some for this one, and some will apply to all of them.
Gaiman was friends with Douglas Adams who took a similar stance with the Hitchhiker’s works — the radio show, books, TV show, computer game, and eventual movie (made after Adams’ death) all have separate canons, and except for the movie, all were scripted by Adams himself.
Adams’s stance was whatever paid him large amounts of money was just fine.
Or IMO who gives a shit about canon lol. Like I take each work for what it is, I shouldn’t, not should anyone else, feel like I need to know everything about a “universe” to enjoy it. Should anyone need to be familiar with 40+ years of comics lore to enjoy a comic book movie, no.
Well, hopefully the writers of the work in question do. Obviously it’s good if any individual entry is accessible, but it makes for a richer storytelling experience if the character and plot history has ties to what’s come years or decades before.
Fair enough, but in cases like that you are requiring your viewer to be familiar with all the back story, I am fine with shout outs to old stories for say comic characters, but people obsessing over what is and isn’t cannon, in say Star Wars or the MCU annoys me lol.
It’s a highly individualized line. “Screw canon” means sequels shouldn’t bother with the movies that created them and larger storytelling between different projects should just be ignored.Which is fine if you hate all sequels and don’t want anything connected to anything else you watch.The other end isn’t helpful earlier. This site’s first reviews of the new Asoka SW series made it pretty (and pretty usefully) clear that if you weren’t steeped in ‘canon’ the show wasn’t going to be good for you.
It’s fine to have sequels and connections between films/projects, it’s just the angry “cannon nerds” that annoy me. I have been liking Ahsoka nd it’s nice not needing to know all of clone wars or rebels and still enjoy it, but if you are a super nerd you can find little easter eggs.
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James Gunn makes Elons tendency to get one guyed look sophisticated in contrast – dude just tells everyone essentially not bother watching any upcoming concretely produced DC movies because he’s going to reset and attempt another DCU next year and going forward, all thanks to answering an account with a single follower with this shit – at least with Elon it’s usually an account with a handful of bots, this is just…a random dude
So apparently absolutely no one working in Hollywood could figure out a way to just make a good movie with characters from previous movies?
When I was eight I read a Star Wars story that featured a green rabbit who walked on two legs and carried a blaster. Taught me not to give a shit about canon. My life is better for it.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jaxxon#Appearances
Jaxxon!! i’m surprised Filoni hasn’t managed to work him into one of these series somehow. Feels like BOBF would’ve been a good fit since it already seemed like it was going for a Magnificent 7 vibe.
Who’d voice him? I say Paul Giamatti.
At this point and about 3 different Star Wars continuities later, I sometimes think I prefer the often ridiculous, frequently bad, but usually fun pulpy thrills of the original Marvel Comics Star Wars stories.
Me too.
Jaxxon is no longer canon since Disney took over, but that’s okay because Marvel published this cover about it:
Yes, that’s the best way to enjoy any franchise.
I was reading writer/producer Michael Uslan’s books about his years getting Batman to the big screen (highly recommend both), and he apparently weighed in on this with the DC/WB people telling them they should avoid trying to go the cinematic universe route like Marvel. What he loved about comics growing up was that you could have multiple iterations of the same character at the same time without them having to share some continuity. Batman in his own book or Detective or Justice League didn’t have to act or even look the same. Trying to force everything to line up and fit in the same box just constrains the writers and the story. Hell, you don’t even need to keep the same actors. I’m surprisingly more interested in whatever the Pattinson Batman does next than what Gunn plans to do with the character. And ffs just recast if the actor dies or wants to move on.TLDR: Fuck canon and fuck cinematic universes.
DC always seemed more comfortable with this approach, but Marvel was all about the shared universe. I think it’s why they’ve been successful in movies as well. Although the DCAU proved that it’s possible with DC characters as well.Canon is worthwhile if you want people invested in more than one movie. Although making quality films that aren’t related will get people invested as well. Marvel has gone off the rails at this point, but the culmination of Cap saying “Avengers assemble” after ten years of storytelling was worth it.
I’m not going to claim that most of what Disney has done with Star Wars is any good, but they probably made the right call jettisoning all that Extended Universe stuff. It would have constrained the narrative so much that they probably would have needed to justify bringing back some ghost or cloned version of the Emperor… oh, wait…
Only when it serves the marketing of other films.Blue Beetle was the first DCU character but the film he stars in (his origin story) is not canon?
Where does it end? The word “abruptly” comes to mind – as in the universe will “abruptly” come to an end.
Suicide Squad (the good one) and Peacemaker too?I respect it.
Curious that the superhero film franchises spend all of their time making sure we buy in wholesale on their shared interconnected universes and now suddenly want us to disregard all of that and enjoy the last year of DCEU ($$$) even though all of it is essentially meaningless by their own standards.
Feels like an odd way to promote Aquaman 2, but hey, you do you, Gunn.
There’s this film I randomly keep catching on TV all over the world over many decades (most recently last year in 2022) called The Cassandra Crossing where the closer the train gets to the aforementioned crossing, the disaster gets more impending and the attenpts to stave it off gets most desperate.Then despite everyone’s efforts, the train reaches the bridge that spans the crossing which then collapses and takes most of the train with it to its doom.I don’t know why I just suddenly thought of this narrative.
That’s a diplomatic way of saying “Jesus Fucking Christ, Zack got his shit in every nook and cranny, didn’t he? It’s gonna take forever to get this stench out of the upholstery.”
lol
I saw that Seinfeld episode. Even when the car was ditched on the street unlocked with the keys in it, not even thieves wanted to take it for free because of the residual stench they couldn’t remove it.
“Which is a slightly strange thing to hear from a studio co-head who does, in fact, have more superhero movies coming out this year”
He doesn’t, though. None of the 2023 movies are DC Studios movies, because it doesn’t exist until Creature Commandos comes out.
so aquaman can command animals of the air now? smh
Back when I was reading Invincible and characters like Savage Dragon would show up in big issues, I saw something from one of the Image creators that explained their approach to canon was basically: there’s a shared universe to the extent that it lets them do fun stories, but not so much that it holds them back.I wonder if movie-goers are ready for a similar, more relaxed attitude to canon. Everyone basically knows who these characters are at this point, and the cluster of ideas and iconography that makes them up. Whether or not the current canonical version of Batman has a Robin, or an Aunt Harriet, or a Batwing or whatever is kind of irrelevant.
I will say that on the rare occasions that my wife and I watched something from the MCU, the interconnectedness of the universe adds nothing except minor irritation.
But isn’t that exactly what you’d expect for only sampling parts of a connected whole?
Yup, which is exactly why I avoid the MCU in general. I like Spider-Man and Zendaya, but the references to the Avengers are dead weight.
My mother avoids them all but the Guardians of the Galaxy movies which she loves but she found the third one actively annoying and simply could not understand why “Zoe Salad-eyna was acting so weird” (exact phrasing, bless her).Both my parents brought it up repeatedly as a critcism when talking about the film since they went to see it back in theaters.
My wife and I had a similar issue with WandaVision and the second Spider-Man movie – they just can’t get out of the shadow of the Avengers movies.
I almost saw it as an homage to those early days of Image. There were some wild character designs at the dawn of Image, even if almost all have faded from the spotlight. The founders of Image did their damndest to make a living in comics on their own terms and breath some life into an industry that was in dire need of a shakeup. It’s why I never rag too hard on dudes on Liefield or Todd, they have true souls of comic nerds.
I guess it’s been recognized that pretending Flash was good and definitely part of the future of DC didn’t actually help that turd at the box office any, so we don’t actually have to keep doing that for Aquaman too. Refreshing, honestly.
Stressing over canon is for chumps.
A lot of people are acting like this is a gotch ya moment or some nonsense when he’s really just saying the same thing he’s been saying – some characters might come back, but the movies aren’t necessarily canon. I would think all of us who lived through Evan Peters on Wandavision and Patrick Stewart in Multiverse of Madness could wrap our minds about that idea. Beyond that, though, I do think Gunn has proven to be careful at managing the DCU messaging. WBD might be the real person to blame for that, but whatever you think about Feige (or even Kathleen Kennedy), they know how to be on message.
i think that, despite it being consistent with everything else he’s said, it still just sounds dumb, for lack of a better way of putting it.it makes sense, but it sounds like it doesn’t make sense. for example, he says he’s gonna do peacemaker season 2 after superman, but it will technically…be another season 1, right? again it’s not necessarily that it’s confusing, but it’s dumb sounding. i look forward to the stuff starting to come out so we don’t have to speculate anymore.
Agreed – I do not think he’s doing great with his messaging, as mentioned. Maybe it’s just cos he speaks off the cuff, but I would think Peter Safran might jump in to help him with that part.Also my comment was missing a critical “not” in that I don’t think he’s careful with messaging.
How about just making a good movie?
Gunn. Didn’t. Make. The. Movie.
All the cinematic universes and multiverses have reached a critical mass point where I now expect any question of which movie/show/whatever is considered canon will be met with a producer screaming “Maybe you! Maybe you! MAYBE YOU!” like Matthew trying decide who gets the big room in that episode of NewsRadio.
I am so over this continuous recycling of a premise.
Yeah, I’ve pretty much lost interest in DC. Really haven’t seen anything interesting from them since Peacemaker. Maybe Gunn will make me interested in Creature Commandos like he did with Guardians, but I’m over Superman, regardless (to be fair, haven’t really been interested in Deus ex Machina in cape since puberty).
Not a shock, Gunn is the most talented directorwriter that either Marvel or Warner has consistently partnered with on these projects, coupled with a large amount of creative freedom. That can be a compliment or a criticism, anyones choice.
i could be mistaken but i thought that Jason was going to get another roll within Gunn’s DCU, i really wanted to say i could have swore i saw them hint at him being Lobo. Now tell me which would you rather have, Jason as Aquaman or Jason as Lobo? the world needs Lobo.
Canon is great when it helps something you are doing with the story. I just finished the Immortal Hulk and it was a triumph that draws on decades of storiescanon. When canon is a barrier to getting the guts of your work across to the audience, drive through that fucker with a truck.The only canon is what is presented in a singular story, direct sequals, explicity spin-offs, what-haves. I dunno, maybe coming up on superhero comics freed me from such burdens. Regardless, the success of the MCU has never made me want for a replica.
Creature Commandos is a really impressively odd place to begin the new universe. It sounds like his approach is going to be to have a ton of characters from the comics like he did with Suicide Squad and not shy away from the weird stuff. I’ve also heard that his universe is going to be heavy on the secret identities, which have been totally thrown away in every big movie (Peter Parker as a photographer? fuck you! Thor or Bruce Banner even having a secret identity? fuck you!) Honestly, what I am hoping for is an era of small stakes. I’m done with the catastrophe-creep where every episode needs to be universe shredding. Give me The Bookworm robbing a bank.