James Gunn has recently opened up about the planned DCU Batman movie, which was initially announced alongside many projects at the start of DC Studios, but hasn’t been discussed too much.
Speaking to Collider in a recent interview, Gunn started off by confirming that the DCU Batman film, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, was still actively in development. However, he said that there’s simply no timeline for everything just yet, and that instead of trying to force things into certain timeframes, he would rather wait until the screenplay for the movie is in the right place.
“There’s no set timeline for anything. The one thing that I’ve tried to make clear to people from the beginning, in the way that I hope we’re different, is that everything in DC is going to be based on the writers,” Gunn explained. “Until we have a screenplay that I’m totally happy with, that movie is not going to get made, no matter what it is.”
Gunn also expanded that, in Hollywood, it’s never as easy or simple as something being greenlit, and that in reality, it’s always based on whether a story is good or not.
“There’s a couple of other things that people don’t know about, a couple of movies and TV shows that are greenlit or near greenlit,” said Gunn. “It’s going to be based always on that, on the story, because at the end of the day if we’re happy with the story that we’re telling, that’s what matters most. And once The Brave and the Bold gets to that point, then we’ll make the movie.”
As of now, basically nothing is known about Batman: The Brave and the Bold. IT and The Flash director Andy Muschietti will direct the project, and reportedly, the film will take inspiration from writer Grant Morrison and artist Andy Kubert’s run on DC Comics’ Batman, specifically their 2006 comic book story arc, “Batman and Son”. The storyline focuses on Bruce Wayne/Batman learning that he has fathered a son, Damian, with Talia al Ghul, the daughter of his nemesis, Ra’s al Ghul.
The first DCU movie, Superman, is scheduled to hit theaters on July 11, 2025.