The DC Universe’s first theatrical release, Superman, has had over two months to reverberate around popular culture circles, and with Peacemaker Season 2 airing weekly and propelling beyond the show's rookie year, it is clear that James Gunn’s universe has had a successful launch. His storytelling style has matched with his effective scheduling strategy, adding up to auspiciously promising expectations for this franchise.
Superman is officially the top earning superhero movie of the year. And now James Gunn has set the stage for a 2026 release of Supergirl, followed by his Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, in July 2027. Gunn and the studio are also producing a live-action Green Lantern series for HBO Max, which will come out next year.
Unlike Kevin Feige over at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Gunn did not slowly rise through the ranks at DC. It is actually quite astounding to stop and think back to how Gunn got to this point with Warner Brothers and DC. His appointment at DC may have never happened if it wasn’t for a decision that Disney/Marvel made, and then ultimately regretted.
After helming the surprisingly triumphant Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for the MCU, “the internet” tried to take Gunn down a notch by resurfacing some old tweets that the heads of the company saw as too insensitive for one of their big-time filmmakers. DC had no problem using the Marvel misstep to their advantage and snatched him up for their Suicide Squad sequel.
The word “surprising” is key to the equation when discussing the Guardians series’ initial achievement, because very few people, including a good amount of comic book fans, were familiar with the Guardians of the Galaxy when Marvel Studios announced it would be their 10th MCU movie. Not just any director could have brought the level of enthusiasm and idiosyncratic flavor of humor that James Gunn delivers. This made him the perfect candidate for an offbeat Suicide Squad tale over at DC.
Eventually, Disney realized they made a hasty decision and asked Gunn to return to complete his Guardians trilogy. At least that part worked out for everyone considering Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is arguably the best of the sub-franchise and gave Gunn the chance to close out narrative threads in a satisfying way that was appreciated by millions of fans.
But this whole ordeal was only the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Gunn and DC. Apparently, the Warner Brother bosses were so pleased by Gunn’s handling of The Suicide Squad and his Peacemaker spinoff show that they gave him the keys to the DC kingdom, along with his partner Peter Safran.
This led to James Gunn transitioning the fading DCEU into the new DCU. And the fact that someone completely new did not take over the refurbished franchise, mixed with Gunn’s zany tactics, is consequentially resulting in some meta-cross-universe references and in-jokes. Even though Superman has been re-cast and the entire backstory of his universe is being rebooted, Gunn couldn’t help but include John Cena’s Peacemaker for a Superman cameo.
Peacemaker Season 2 was timed to release shortly after the Superman re-debut. Now the HBO Max show is freely taking from both the previous DCEU and the new DCU as it sees fit, all because James Gunn is in control. His connection to both factions puts him in a unique position to play around this way without anyone claiming he should not be entitled to do so.
The events of his DCEU Suicide Squad movie are carrying into the second season of Peacemaker in specific ways, especially having Joel Kinneman reprise his role as the late Rick Flag Jr. The narrative surrounding Peacemaker killing Jr. in The Suicide Squad continuing with Sr.’s revenge in the series is one of the best aspects about the sophomore season.
Then, James Gunn organized some clever retconning (retroactive continuity is a term comic books readers are familiar with). Retconning can certainly be looked down on as a way to cheaply change history for the author’s needs in their contemporary story, but because Gunn is reshaping plot points in a tongue-in-cheek manner lends a certain air of appropriateness to it all.
At the end of Peacemaker Season 1, the Justice League made a brief appearance, with overt cameos by Jason Mamoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash. To start Season 2, Gunn recapped that moment and changed the lineup to the Justice Gang, with Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl swapping in for Aquaman and Flash, as the only heroes with speaking parts.
Fillion and Merced co-starred in Gunn’s Superman this summer and then had an extended scene in the opening chapter of Peacemaker Season 2. They interviewed Peacemaker alongside their financier Maxwell Lord, who is played by James’ brother Sean – who also had a cameo in the Superman feature.
So not only did James Gunn leave behind Marvel for the DC camp, he is bringing along his friends and family. His brother Sean, his wife Jennifer Holland, and constant collaborators Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, all had roles (some even multiple parts) in both the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and Gunn’s DC projects.