Why New Gods Is Trending
DC's New Gods is trending right now on social media, but it probably isn't for the reason you would be expecting this time around.
This article is more than 2 years old
New Gods is getting a little social media uptick right now, trending on Twitter for starters, but not for any of the reasons the movie writers would want. It’s not because we started to get a broader sense of this group in a recent DC Extended Universe production. Rather, it’s because now there’s word that the film about the group, which was in active development, is being scrapped from their upcoming catalog. New Gods isn’t moving forward and we won’t, for the time being, be getting a film about these ne’er-do-wells.
The news about New Gods came down on Thursday with DC leaving both that film and The Trench off of their next lineup of films. It was a disappointing announcement considering the group got some pub and screen time in the latest film, Zack Snyder’s Justice League. There were got longer looks at Darkseid, DeSaad, and Granny Goodness. They were meant to have a bigger storyline in upcoming Justice League films and this was the first on-screen introduction to the group. In a world where posing new threats to the superheroes on Earth can sometimes be an increasingly difficult challenge (especially where Superman is involved), these folks looked like quite the problem.
The New Gods film was put into development back in 2018 with Ava DuVernay signed on to direct the film and it was posited that Darkseid would be the main character in the film. It was also apparently going to include the Female Furies, a group of evil warriors who act as Darkseid’s henchwomen. In terms of the overall story, it wasn’t totally clear which direction they were going to go in what would have likely been a very dark film. But for the time being, we aren’t going to find out.
Ava Duvernay took to Twitter to lament about New Gods being scrapped by DC:
DuVernay is referencing author and comic book writer Tom King with whom she was co-writing New Gods. In addition to the aforementioned Furies, she also makes a reference to Jack Kirby’s Fourth World which is the affectionate name for this group of characters. From this tweet, it would appear the two were pretty far along in the script-writing game and there’s some chance they had actually completed it.
DC announced the dropping of New Gods from their upcoming lineup of films though stopped at firm explanations for why it wasn’t moving forward with development. Could it be that the film just trended too dark for where they saw the franchise moving forward? That could be the case considering the other film getting the ax with The Trench which was set to explore the monsters in the Mariana Trench who are at odds with the Atlanteans from Aquaman. From the comic books, this film also likely trended much more on the evil side. So getting rid of both movies could be part of an overall tone shift for DC.
So New Gods is trending but for all the wrong reasons. We aren’t going to get a further exploration of this group which really did look set up for an expanded story especially after the events of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
