James Gunn debunks offer made to direct movie for DC Studios
One-half of DC Studios has debunked a claim made by a couple of content creators known as the RackaRacka to helm one of their DC projects.
As you can imagine, both co-CEOs and co-chairmen, James Gunn and Peter Safran of DC Studios are hard at work establishing and forming some filmmaking talent for their DCU franchise after the DCEU comes to a close towards the end of the year.
It seems according to Comicbook, the DC Studio heads have been meeting every ragtag and bobtail director in the film industry such names as James Mangold and Ben Affleck to direct a DC project. One of those names was Danny and Michael Philippou, who started off as content creators on YouTube known as RackaRacka, were the ones Gunn and Safran approached.
Who are the RackaRacka Bros?
The Philippou Brothers, who were from South Australia, Adelaide, and are now based in Los Angeles, CA, started their channel RackaRacka. Their YouTube channel currently sits at over 6.7 million subscribers and over 1.1 billion views. The Philippou Bros. was known for filming brutal home videos and stunts. They then kicked off their YouTube channel RackaRacka which combined martial arts, special effects, and dark humor. Their first major success was Harry Potter vs. Star Wars, which garnered them 7 million views.
The RackaRacka twins won Best International YouTube Channel at the 6th Streamy Awards in 2015. They made their feature-length directorial debut with Talk to Me with Australian production company Causeway Films, the same film studio where they assisted as crew on the film, The Babadook.
RackaRacka meeting at DC Studios…
Via Instagram Live, Danny discussed how the meeting went with Gunn. Though later this claim was debunked as per CBR.com by the studio executive and filmmaker himself via Twitter after a DC fan asked what project Gunn offered the RackaRacka twins. Danny [Philippou] stated:
"“‘How did the meeting go?’ Amazing. DC meeting went amazing. They offered us a project, but we decided not to go for it at the moment.”"
He added:
"“We wanted to, yeah, just stick with our original material for the time being. But yeah, we’ll see. In the future, you never know. You never know. I’m keen to see what James Gunn does with the universe. I’m excited to see it.”"
In response, Gunn clarified this statement and responded that The Philippou Bros. had met some of their executives with “the possibility of something” but neither [he] nor Safran met up with them. Gunn said on Twitter:
The Phillippous met with some of our execs, and maybe discussed the possibility of something, but they never met me and Peter and DC never offered them a project. Maybe they turned down pitching on something?
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) April 13, 2023
No clue. Maybe they interpreted offering them to pitch on a project as an offer to actually do the project? Like how sometimes actors say they were offered a role when they were simply offered an audition.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) April 13, 2023
Clearly, there was a misunderstanding between RackaRacka and the execs as the only confirmed directors for the DCU film slate are Gunn himself on Superman: Legacy and James Mangold for Swamp Thing.
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What do you think of The Philippou Bros. having meetings with DC Studios? Did the co-CEOs and co-chairmen dodge a bullet from the duo? And what project would you have wanted RackaRacka to helm if they were actually offered anything? Sound off in the comments below!