Congressman Threatens To Bring DC Boss Into Congressional Hearing
Congressman Robert Garcia jokes that he will have James Gunn brought before Congress if the DC Studios co-head doesn't release the upcoming slate of DC movies by the end of January.
In the beginning of January, as reported by CBR, DC Studios co-head James Gunn said a partial list of the DC film releases planned for the next decade would be made public by the end of the month. Well, February is almost here, no list has been released, and now a prominent congressman has tweeted a joking threat. Congressman Robert Garcia of California says he plans to call the filmmaker “in for a congressional hearing where I will ask the tough questions everyone wants to know.”
Obviously, Congressman Garcia is joking, but if anyone were to call James Gunn before Congress to spill on the future of DC, he would be the one to do it. Garcia was sworn into Congress on, among other things, a copy of 1939’s Superman #1.
Congressman Garcia may have just been joking around, but his tweet nevertheless serves as a reminder that the clock is ticking on James Gunn and DC Studios co-head Peter Safran to release their partial film slate for the next 8 to 10 years. Gunn said that while they’ve mapped out the next decade or so of DC movies, the January list would only be partial. Whenever we get the list — whether it’s made by the end of the month or not — we know a little bit about what to expect.
First there are the projects that have already been announced, including the 4 films releasing this year: Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and finally Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Then there are the two films outside standard DCU continuity: Joker: Folie à Deux and The Batman 2. Finally there are the two TV projects set in Matt Reeves’ The Batman continuity, and a mystery DC TV show that James Gunn announced.
James Gunn has also confirmed the first of the DC films to be developed after he and Safran took over the studio will be a new Superman film in which an actor other than Henry Cavill will play a young Superman. There have also been some pretty big hints dropped that Jason Momoa has been cast as the big screen version of the interstellar bounty hunter Lobo. If true, this would mark the first live-action version of the character in a feature film, though Emmett J. Scanlan played the Main Main in SyFy’s Krypton.
It’s possible one thing that’s stopping James Gunn and Peter Safran from releasing the partial DC film slate is something that happened the same day Congressman Garcia tweeted about it. Earlier that day, this past Sunday, Shazam! Fury of the Gods star Zachary Levi posted a controversial tweet which many fans have interpreted as being anti-vax. A lot of those fans have called Levi’s future in DC into question, and if they’re right then Gunn and Safran may be working hard to figure out how to move forward.
