James Gunn Has a Message for DCU Fans Waiting on a Big Crossover

It has been a bumpy stretch for the DC Universe at the box office. ‘Supergirl’ suffered the franchise’s first high-profile loss this summer, grossing barely a sixth of what ‘Superman’ made the previous summer. That was a steep fall for a slate that got off to a great start with a $125 million domestic opening for ‘Superman’ last year.

Next in line was a very different kind of DC movie. ‘Clayface,’ an R-rated body-horror film directed by James Watkins and starring Tom Rhys Harries, arrived in theaters on Oct. 23 with a modest $40 million budget. Tracking suggested it had the weakest pre-sales of any DCU entry so far, although horror hits like ‘Obsession,’ ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Resident Evil’ had given the genre a strong year.

With the film now in theaters, an old argument about the DCU’s direction has resurfaced online. Some DC watchers have complained that Gunn and co-chairman Peter Safran haven’t used the smaller stories to build toward bigger tie-in projects, even though the movie itself earned a 7/10 from IGN.

Gunn answered that criticism himself over the weekend. He took to Threads on Saturday to defend the DCU and its “individual stories” approach, replying to a commenter who argued he doesn’t need to lay the foundation for one totally interconnected universe. The post he replied to showed a list of DCU projects, including ‘Superman,’ ‘Peacemaker,’ ‘Supergirl,’ ‘Creature Commandos’ and ‘Clayface,’ and asked what it was all building toward.

According to Variety, the DC Studios co-head said he dislikes the idea that individual stories aren’t meaningful unless they lead to something. He opened his reply by telling the commenter he couldn’t agree more. He described the DCU as an alternate universe that the studio can enter at any location or time to tell that particular story.

His go-to comparison was a galaxy far, far away. Gunn said he finds it strange that people don’t understand this approach, because ‘Star Wars’ has essentially done the same thing for 50 years across movies, shows, games and books, though without the same tonal variety. That tonal variety is easy to see in the DCU, which has bounced from serious drama and action to comedy and, most recently, horror.

Gunn was careful to say this doesn’t mean the DCU has no connections. In a follow-up post, he said the ‘Superman’ saga begins with ‘Superman’ and continues into ‘Man of Tomorrow,’ and that it includes many characters introduced in other stories. His point was that those other stories don’t exist only to set up that saga. ‘Man of Tomorrow’ is the next DC film on the calendar, arriving next July.

The stance isn’t new for Gunn. Ahead of ‘Superman’ last year, he told GamesRadar+ that he wants the movies and shows to be mostly self-contained, without everything leaning on everything else. He has also said that a shared universe shouldn’t feel like homework.

Not everyone is sold on that philosophy, though. While many agree with Gunn, others feel he is losing sight of what a shared universe should accomplish, arguing that fans should have something to invest in and look forward to down the line. That tension is likely to follow the DCU for as long as its box office numbers are under a microscope.

The timing makes his comments hard to ignore. Following the ‘Supergirl’ disappointment, later DCU releases face growing commercial pressure, and a weak showing from ‘Man of Tomorrow’ could prompt another reassessment of the franchise’s strategy. Gunn clearly isn’t planning to change his approach, but how fans respond over the next year may decide whether the “enter anywhere” model can really hold up.