James Gunn is talking the talk about one of his most-anticipated upcoming DCU movies, and Marvel may just be scared that he’s going to walk the walk. It remains to be seen whether Gunn’s rebooted DC universe is going to be able to reinvigorate the stumbling superhero movie genre when it kicks off with Superman next year, but there’s certainly a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for it among hardcore fans.
As much as superhero devotees will check out every new MCU movie on opening weekend, it’s no secret that the Marvel formula has arguably grown a little stale in recent years (barring the odd enormous success story, like Spider-Man: No Way Home or Deadpool & Wolverine). Gunn’s DCU has an actual chance to inject some much-needed creativity and innovation into the flagging field, then, and it seems like one particular project in the works has the power to blow the MCU’s tried-and-tested formula out of the water.
James Gunn promises this Superman spinoff is “completely different” to anything we’ve seen before
Gunn attended New York Comic-Con this weekend to hype up the incoming Creature Commandos animated series, and in doing so he was able to shed light on a few other DC projects in the works, too. That included Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, starring House of the Dragon’s Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, cousin to David Corenswet’s Man of Steel.
While Supergirl is a character who’s been adapted for the screen many times over at this point — most recently in The Flash, as played by Sasha Calle — Gunn promised that Woman of Tomorrow will offer something wholly unique. When quizzed by panel host Josh Horowitz, the DC Studios co-CEO gushed that the film had been “blessed from the beginning” and teased that screenwriter Ana Nogueira and director Craig Gillespie have cooked up something special indeed.
“Ana came in and she pitched the storyline to me, of Supergirl, and it was just one of the best pitches I’ve ever heard,” Gunn praised, before confirming that the movie is “very much based on” Tom King’s comic book of the same name, albeit with some key structural differences in the storytelling. The comic’s subversive characterization of Kara is something that will be retained for the screen, for one. “Supergirl’s a mess,” Gunn joked, hinting at how Alcock’s heroine will be unlike prior incarnations of the role.
Gunn then wrapped up his spiel with a declaration that typically makes us wince whenever someone says it, but in this case might just be worth listening to. “I think it’s a completely different, unique take on a superhero,” he stated.
This is the kind of attention-grabbing promise Marvel Studios has said many times about this film or that film — director Jake Schreier has said it about Thunderbolts*, despite that one seeming heavily derived from Gunn’s own The Suicide Squad. By taking an iconic, and generally infallible and invulnerable, character like Supergirl and making her a “mess,” this could genuinely be one of the bravest (and boldest) revisionist takes on the genre we’ve yet seen.
Gunn’s confirmation about how close it will be to the Woman of Tomorrow comic also indicates that this will be a truly cosmic superhero film, even more so than anything Marvel has offered to date. Think about it; the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, the Captain Marvel films, and the Thor four have all made sure to include human characters thrust into space, no doubt out of fear the audience won’t be able to relate. In Supergirl, however, we’ll be following an alien heroine in an alien environment.
It’s hard to do anything fresh in a movie genre that drops at least half a dozen new releases every given year, but Gunn has the real potential to show everyone else how it’s done with the DCU. Your move, Marvel.