James Gunn suggests a DC-Marvel movie crossover might happen someday
“I’m certain that’s more likely now that I’m in charge," Gunn said, while making it clear such a crossover would be a very long way off
Aux News James Gunn
Nobody, in all of the multi-billion-dollar superhero industry, straddles the gaps between the various camps like James Gunn. Originally coming up doing oddball indie cape movies, Gunn moved into a comfortable niche at Marvel with the Guardians Of The Galaxy films—and then, in between getting fired and then re-hired from those movies by Disney, began building up an empire at Warner Bros., ending in his takeover, with Peter Safran, of the entire DC Films apparatus late last year.
So, if anybody could maneuver the two companies into some kind of alliance, it’d be Gunn—and he’d “be lying” if he said he hadn’t thought about it. This is per an interview with Empire this week, ahead of the upcoming release of Gunn’s last regular Marvel project, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, in which Gunn admitted that he’s had conversations about some kind of crossover, while carefully noting that “all discussions have been very, very light and fun.”
Gunn clearly doesn’t want to put the cart before the horse, in terms of him and Safran getting DC Films put together—including, presumably, that new Superman movie Gunn has now put himself on the hook for. But he’s at least flirting with the idea of an inter-company crossover somewhere way down the line—even though, historically, those have… kind of sucked?
Look, we’re as seduced by the idea of Supes and Spidey teaming up and trading platitudes about responsibility as the next nerds. But the fact is, the various DC-Marvel crossovers that have happened in comics over the decades (and there have been quite a few of them) have mostly been weird, unsatisfactory things: Hampered by neither company wanting to “lose” any big fights between their heavy hitters, they tend to be pretty tepid affairs overall. (Even if the big one from the ’90s, the fascinatingly misguided Amalgam Universe, did produce some enjoyable goofy stuff, like “Dark Claw,” which is what you get when you merge Batman and Wolverine into a single, very angsty character.)
That being said, Gunn has accomplished a lot over the years by embracing the “kid playing with his action figures” ethos of superhero film-making, so maybe he’s the guy to have Thor and Aquaman finally duke it out over who’s copying who. If nothing else, he grants, “I’m certain that’s more likely now that I’m in charge.”
20 Comments
Both franchises would have to be on life support for something like this to happen. Or maybe it’ll just be a video game or animated movie.I think Marvel should focus on regaining/sustaining excitement for their projects, while DC should focus on trying to make two good movies in a row.
My thoughts exactly, odds of this coming to pass goes up as revenue goes down.
Giving the DCAMU (presuming it still even exists) license to use Marvel characters to do this seems like the best bet. It would give them the opportunity to use their retired characters in an alternate universe situation, where it wouldn’t matter so much if RDJ or Chris Evans et al didn’t feel obliged to return. Some of the current actors are already sharpening their VA skills on What If…? and would probably be easy to talk into doing a one-off or series of specials. I have a hard time seeing it working in live action with the current roster at the MCU. I love pretty much everyone they’ve added in Phase 4, but unless DC volunteers most of their B-tier or lower heroes, it would be pretty heavily imbalanced, even if we’re not talking a straight up versus scenario. Aside from seeing Moon Knight drive Batman absolutely crazy, I just don’t know that there’s a lot of well matched pairings without most of the OG MCU cast or characters yet to even appear.
JLA/Avengers really nailed it, as did X-Men and Teen Titans.
The best inter-company crossover, however, was Archie Meets the Punisher.
Touché
Yeah I think the only Marvel/DC crossover that needs to happen is an animated version of this JLA/Avengers mini series.Also Marvel/DC need to reprint the trade properly, not just very limited release last year to give a token payout to George Perez’s family after his death.That crossover was brilliant and it’s a crying shame that it’s basically been out of print since early 2000’s.
I snagged the Absolute Edition the day it went on sale and got it signed by Busiek and Perez. It’s one of the few books I won’t loan out.
“Even if the big one from the ’90s, the fascinatingly misguided Amalgam Universe, did produce some enjoyable goofy stuff, like “Dark Claw,” which is what you get when you merge Batman and Wolverine into a single, very angsty character.”Lobo the Duck! So weird and awesome.
Using LEGOs, right?
I could definitely see this happening as a LEGO movie, but I always pictured it happening as a LEGO video game.
Access confirmed!
I’m as surprised as anybody he didn’t just tweet this to a random person.
There’s no fucking way this happens, unless one company owns both franchises. That’s possible, theoretically, I guess.Incidentally, Hulk/Superman is my favorite of the Marvel/DC crossovers. Perfect way to do it.First fight? Hulk wins.Second fight? Superman wins.Third encounter? Team up against a big bad.That’s how ya fuckin’ do it, right there.
The Rock all of a sudden perks up and yells “DOES THIS MEAN I CAN BEAT UP THE HULK?”
Who doesn’t want to see Thanoseid?
If it happens, I’m guessing they’d use peripheral characters to test the waters and not the big guns. There’s enough obscure or b-heroes in both their canons to play with.
In one of those comics crossovers, Beast Boy met Wolverine and found out his name was Logan too. He asked if he thought they were related and Wolverine said “nope.”Over many years and many comics, that’s the only crossover detail I remember.
That issue is the first appearance of the Source Wall. Pretty significant piece of the DCU for an inter-company crossover.
Unless it involves me as a writer, it’s worthless to pursue. But ego aside:I support this. I suspect that the topline execs might want it to be an Endgame style super blockbuster, but I think it can work as smaller films with mid-tier characters.You would have to have agreement among both company executives about the “physics” and limitations of each respective universe. Superman traditionally has had unofficially unlimited strength capacity for lifting (carrying aircraft carriers in the silver/bronze age, etc., and of course, ahem, moving some planets here and there.) whereas Marvel generally gave their characters more relatively downscaled strength and stunt limits in the comics. DC’s The Flash has near-light-speed as a baseline to start, but folks like Marvel’s Quicksilver typically top out at just past the speed of sound.You would need a tempting McGuffin that has not been done yet in either universe. It’s probably for the best not to resurrect older villains, e.g., Thanos. Since Darkseid has only been fully seen in the 4 hour cut of Justice League, he might be an option, maybe. And of course what actors is another super-hurdle. If money and actor interest was no object, (and of course, it always is), do you bring back Robert Downey’s Iron Man for quips against Ben Affleck’s Batman? Tony: “yeah, we rich white guys have a savior complex, don’t we.. who’s your therapist?” Bruce: “My butler..”)If you bring in the traditional comics topline characters, then you have a Superman/Spider-Man pairing, which of course is super-unbalanced in the power base for each person, so a fight is not really where the interaction should go. Plus, Henry Cavill is officially out, so this would be a newer person interacting with Tom Holland.In Marvel films you’ve had some characters make brief references to DC characters being known fictional characters, so that would take things into a “meta” zone if left in canon.Then of course Wolverine’s status is in limbo for the MCU, despite his planned return in Deadpool 3. We’ll see how that goes? Not sure who his natural counterpart at DC would be besides, well, Batman, and of course there’s all the problems with Affleck and the Pattinson character being officially in his own super-separate world.Not sure how an interaction with Momoa’s Aquaman and Huerta’s Sub-Mariner would go. Lots of splashing water on one another?