It didn’t take James Gunn long to return to the superhero movie world after Disney fired him from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Following on from reports last year, Warner Bros. recently announced that Gunn will be helming a reboot of Suicide Squad, titled The Suicide Squad, to arrive on screens in summer 2021. It sounds like this would be an obvious choice of project for the filmmaker to direct, but actually, DC offered him his pick of movies beforehand.
The Hollywood Reporter’s latest newsletter reveals that DC execs were so keen to get the man behind the mega-successful Guardians of the Galaxy franchise on board that they gave him free rein to pick whichever film he wanted, including – as has previously been reported – a Superman movie. Gunn was drawn to retooling Task Force X, however, leaving the cinematic future of the Man of Steel uncertain.
While researching Superman though, Gunn apparently showed an interest in Clark Kent’s superdog, Krypto. It’s possible that this started WB thinking about the animal side of the DC universe, leading to them announcing DC Super Pets, an animated movie from Jared Stern (The LEGO Batman Movie) also arriving in summer 2021.
But circling back to Superman, and one way to look at Gunn being offered the character is that WB’s clearly still interested in making another film featuring the hero and is now looking for a director to helm a new take on the Last Son of Krypton. Given that Gunn’s rebooting the Suicide Squad and Matt Reeves is searching for a new Bruce Wayne for The Batman though, we’re pretty sure we’ve seen the last of Henry Cavill with an ‘S’ on his chest, even if the British star seems as committed to the character as ever.
