Warner Bros. at 100: Characters of Steel Propel DC Into Future

Adam B. Vary
·4 min read
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The modern superhero movie would not exist without the version of Superman limned by Christopher Reeve in Warner Bros.’ 1978 smash “Superman.”

First created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for Action Comics, the Man of Steel became a pop-culture mainstay with the syn- dicated “Adventures of Superman” TV series in the 1950s. But it wasn’t until DC Comics moved into the world of Warner Bros. and Reeve donned the last son of Krypton’s blue-and-red tights for the Richard Donner-directed “Superman” that bringing a comic book superhero to life on the big screen was seen as blockbuster business. And the spoils were considerable: In the moment, “Superman” ranked as WB’s highest-grossing movie ever.

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For the next two decades, Warner Bros. dominated superhero cinema, especially after Tim Bur- ton’s “Batman” in 1989 launched the Caped Crusader as the dark and brooding yin to Superman’s virtuous and hopeful yang. By 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” more than a dozen DC Comics live-action adaptations had earned upward of $4.4 billion in unadjusted global grosses. That same year, however, Marvel Studios’ “Iron Man” debuted; in the 2010s, despite successfully launching Wonder Woman and Aquaman into their own lucrative film franchises, DC was forced to live under the considerable box office shadow of its longtime rival.

Cut to 2023. On Jan. 30, DC Studios took one giant leap to reassert its place in the comic book firmament, when newly installed chiefs James Gunn (director of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise) and Peter Safran (producer of DC’s “Aquaman” and “Shazam!”) unveiled the first chapter of their vision for the future of the unit at a media event on the Warner Bros. lot. For the first time since WB and DC became one in 1969 (when the studio was acquired by Steven J. Ross’ Kinney Corp., which owned DC), stories from the comic trove will unfold with creative coordination across film, TV, animation and gaming.

“They’re on a mission,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav says of Gunn and Safran. The blue- print for expanding DC’s footprint in the biz is closely intertwined with the big-picture strategy for Warner Bros. overall. “We have a real opportunity to breathe life into these characters,” Zaslav says.

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To start, DC is going back to where it all began with “Superman: Legacy,” which Gunn will write and direct for an expected July 11, 2025, release date. The film “focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing,” Safran said in January. “He is kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned.”

But don’t expect a retread. “I don’t think the movie would be worth making if it was just a redo of any other Superman adaptation,” Gunn tells Variety. “For us to truly thrive as a studio, we need to honor the past of these characters while simultaneously seeing them in a new light.”

Batman is also getting a reboot with “The Brave and the Bold,” a feature film showcasing the super- hero’s relationship with a maladjusted Robin; and HBO Max series “Paradise Lost” will explore the history of Wonder Woman’s home of Themyscira. (Matt Reeves’ “The Batman Part II” with Robert Pattinson, and Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie à Deux” with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, will exist outside of DC Studios’ cinematic universe.)

Gunn and Safran aren’t just relying on DC’s marquee heroes, however. They’re also planning films about more obscure characters like the Swamp Thing (with James Mangold eyeing to direct) and a team of morally ambivalent superhumans called the Authority, as well as a TV series about Booster Gold, about a man who fakes his superheroism, using technology from the future.

It’s all designed to broaden DC’s horizons — and bring a wider diversity of storytelling to audiences.

“We think there’s a lot of potential in some of these lesser-known characters to be the stars of the DC of the future,” Gunn says.

(Pictured: Christopher Reeve in 1978’s “Superman”; Robert Pattinson in 2022’s “The Batman”)

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