Batgirl isn’t the only film to be killed off at DC. Two years after newly hired DC Studios co-chairmen and CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran defended Warner Bros.’ controversial decision to axe the $90 million movie during post-production, calling the Leslie Grace and Michael Keaton-fronted Batman spinoff “not releasable,” Gunn and Safran killed a project of their own. While promoting Superman, the first film from DC Studios and the start of the new DC Universe, Gunn told Rolling Stone, “We just killed a project. Everybody wanted to make the movie. It was greenlit, ready to go. The screenplay wasn’t ready. And I couldn’t do a movie where the screenplay’s not good.”
While the mystery DC Studios movie wasn’t as far along as DC Films’ Batgirl, Gunn has repeatedly said the studio won’t start production on any project without a finished script. In a new interview with NPR, Gunn decried the amount of “crappy movies” and criticized studios for shooting films with unfinished scripts in order to meet predetermined release dates.
“80% of the time a big movie is being made, they’re finishing the scripts while the movie is being shot,” the Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad writer-director said. “And it’s terrible, because the movies are bad. It has to be script-based.”
DC Studios is instead “trying to elevate the writer” and emphasizing the screenwriter’s role in the filmmaking process. “The writer is important. They’ve just been diminished so much over the past 20 years, and it’s horrifying. And that’s the reason why movies are bad.”
Gunn pointed out that screenplays often aren’t finished beyond the first act, which then becomes incongruent with a film’s third act.
“You can’t write a first act that doesn’t relate to the last act,” he explained. “So if the last act isn’t written, movies don’t work like that. Plots don’t work like that. It’s like a clock, where everything has to fit and work together. And I’ve seen it happen again and again, and it irritates the hell out of me. As much as I go out there and keep talking about it, they still keep doing it. It’s crazy.”
“I’ll never do it. I will never do it,” Gunn said of going into production without a finished script. “We just had a screenplay [for] a movie that was greenlit, we got a second draft and a third draft, and it just wasn’t changing. It wasn’t getting better. It was staying in the same place. I said, ‘We can’t make this film. We can’t. It’s not good. We know it’s not good.’”
He continued, “Just because we have a good director attached, and a good screenwriter, it doesn’t mean the script is working. Everyone is going to be upset at the end of this. It’s going to come out, the movie’s not going to be good, the director’s going to look bad, the screenwriter’s going to look bad, and we’re going to look bad. So we’re not going to make the movie. And so we killed it.”
Gunn and Safran announced their 10-project DCU slate in 2023, which included the films Superman (then titled Superman: Legacy), Supergirl (originally titled Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow), The Authority, Swamp Thing, and Batman & Robin movie The Brave and the Bold. The DC chiefs also announced the HBO Max animated series Creature Commandos (since released), HBO mystery-drama Lanterns (expected in 2026), the Game of Thrones-type Wonder Woman spinoff series Paradise Lost (in development), Booster Gold (which has since stalled), and The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker spinoff Waller (also stalled).
While The Flash filmmaker Andy Muschietti is attached to make the DCU Batman movie and the studio is reportedly fast-tracking a Wonder Woman reboot, The Authority and Swamp Thing are on the backburner. The latter announced James Mangold (Logan) as director in February 2023, although there have been no developments since. (Gunn gave updates on both films this past February, telling press that “we talk about [Swamp Thing] occasionally” but that The Authority “has had a harder time coming along.”)
Although not announced as part of the initial DC Studios slate, Gunn and Safran have set R-rated body horror Clayface, written by Mike Flanagan and directed by James Watkins, for September 2026, and are developing a Sgt. Rock movie that halted pre-production in the spring (the World War II-set movie from Luca Guadagnino and The Penguin star Colin Farrell is now expected to start production in summer 2026 instead).
Following Superman, DC Studios has dated the films Supergirl (June 26, 2026), Clayface (Sept. 11, 2026), and Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Part II (Oct. 1, 2027).
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