James Gunn surprisingly confirms the Elseworlds movie everyone thought was dead is very much alive

When James Gunn and Peter Safran were announced as the new co-CEOs of DC Studios, it spelled bad news for many of the projects, actors, and characters to have either existed or entered development under the old regime’s watch.

Sure enough, wasting no time at all in putting their own stamp on the franchise, it was confirmed that Henry Cavill’s Superman and Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam were surplus to requirements, while The Flash will mark the end of the line for Ben Affleck’s Batman as speculation continues to swirl around the remainder of the SnyderVerse OGs.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman and Todd Phillips Joker sagas were deemed immune from the cull due to both their immense acclaim and profitability as Elseworlds titles, but everyone was fully expecting the mysterious Superman reboot being developed by J.J. Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates to end up being thrown onto the discard pile, especially when Gunn is writing and directing his own Man of Steel do-over.

And yet, in a turn-up for the books few would have seen coming, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director surprisingly revealed to io9 that the rival Superman project is fully intended to make its way to the big screen eventually.

“Those two things are totally unrelated. That’s an exciting movie. I know that Chantal Nong, who is the executive on that project, is extremely excited about it. So if it comes in and it’s great, which I haven’t read the script, and if the timing is right, that could absolutely happen. That’s totally unrelated. It would be an Elseworlds tale like Joker.”

To be fair, it’s about time Abrams and Bad Robot did something with a DC property after essentially stealing Warner Bros.’ money for years without actually delivering anything, but we never thought it would come in the form of a Big Blue Boy Scout blockbuster.