‘The People v. Gorilla Grodd’ First Look From the Set Reveals Skylar Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen and Eduardo Franco

DC Studios has spent the past year proving it’s willing to get weird with its television slate, and its next project might be the boldest experiment yet. Following the strong reception for ‘Lanterns’ earlier this year, the studio is now turning its attention to a true-crime mockumentary built around one of Superman’s most unlikely villains.

That series is ‘The People v. Gorilla Grodd,’ an eight-episode half-hour comedy from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Television that expands the Daily Planet corner of the DC Universe first introduced in James Gunn’s ‘Superman.’ Skyler Gisondo returns as Jimmy Olsen, this time trading his reporter duties for a stint as an amateur documentarian investigating a murder case.

Fresh set photos have now given fans their clearest look yet at production, with images capturing Gisondo alongside newcomer Eduardo Franco on location. Additional photos show a placeholder figure standing in for Gorilla Grodd himself, since the character is expected to be rendered entirely through CGI once the series is complete, meaning the figure seen on set exists purely to help with blocking and lighting during filming.

Franco, known for his role in ‘Stranger Things,’ is widely believed to be playing Matter-Eater Lad based on the footage circulating from set, though his role hasn’t been officially confirmed. He joins a cast that also includes Mary Holland, Arian Moayed, series co-creator Dan Perrault, Andrew Leeds, and Tim Baltz, all in previously unrevealed roles.

The show’s premise leans hard into absurdity by design. According to its official logline, Gorilla Grodd has already been convicted of murdering his father, the King of Gorilla City, and Jimmy Olsen reopens the case for an in-world true-crime docuseries investigating whether Grodd was wrongly convicted in one of Metropolis’s most infamous murder trials.

That structure comes courtesy of ‘American Vandal’ creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, who serve as writers, showrunners, and executive producers, with Yacenda directing all eight episodes. The format mirrors their earlier work on ‘American Vandal,’ which used interview segments, evidence boards, and dead-serious narration to investigate deliberately ridiculous fictional crimes.

Jimmy Tatro stars as Gorilla Grodd himself, reuniting with Franco after the two previously worked together on the first season of ‘American Vandal.’ Rounding out the returning ‘Superman’ cast are Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, and Wendell Pierce reprising his role as Daily Planet editor Perry White.

James Gunn and Peter Safran explained their enthusiasm for greenlighting the project in a statement shared with Variety, saying they knew coming out of ‘Superman’ that the chemistry among the Daily Planet cast made this corner of the DCU worth exploring further. They added that pairing Perrault and Yacenda with the material would let them dig into darker and funnier corners of Metropolis through Jimmy’s documentarian lens.

That vote of confidence arrives on the heels of genuine momentum for DC Studios’ expanding television output. With ‘Lanterns’ having already delivered a strong premiere for the studio earlier this year, ‘The People v. Gorilla Grodd’ represents a very different kind of bet, trading cosmic stakes and superhero spectacle for something closer to a mockumentary satire of the DCU’s criminal justice system.

Filming has been taking place in the Atlanta area, with production reportedly making use of the Georgia Tech campus to stand in for parts of Metropolis. No release date has been announced yet, but with production well underway and new footage steadily surfacing online, fans won’t have to wait long to see just how strange this corner of the DCU is willing to get.

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