James Gunn’s Superman Spinoff Just Snuck a Familiar ‘Smallville’ Villain Into the DCU

‘The People v. Gorilla Grodd‘ has quietly become one of the more unusual bets James Gunn’s DC Studios has made since rebooting the franchise, trading capes and world-ending stakes for a mockumentary about a talking gorilla on trial for murder. The eight-episode comedy spins directly out of 2025’s ‘Superman’ and follows Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, played by Skyler Gisondo, as he reopens the case against Gorilla Grodd, the superintelligent ape convicted of killing and eating the brain of his own father, the King of Gorilla City.

The show comes from Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, the team behind ‘American Vandal,’ who are writing, directing, and showrunning the entire season, with Gunn and Peter Safran producing alongside them. That true crime format pedigree explains a lot about the tone Gunn and company are chasing here, closer to a docuseries parody than a traditional superhero spinoff.

Now production footage out of Atlanta has fans convinced the show is about to fold in an unexpected piece of Superman history. New set video and photos reveal campaign signage reading “Ray Sacks For Mayor” scattered around the show’s Metropolis setting, a name that immediately jumped out to longtime fans of the WB series ‘Smallville,’ where Ray Sacks appeared as a recurring villain during the show’s ninth season.

BTS footage of signs that read “Ray Sacks for Mayor” on the set of The People Vs Gorilla Grodd
(📸:@AadenDufresne ) pic.twitter.com/PoSH384uwO

— ATL DC (@AtlantaDCFans) September 20, 2026

The signage is currently the only evidence tying the character to the new series, and DC Studios has not confirmed whether Ray Sacks will actually appear as a character in the finished episodes. It is entirely possible the name is functioning as a background joke or a visual easter egg rather than an actual plot thread involving the character stepping into frame.

Still, the detail fits neatly into a show that has already leaned hard into a lived-in, background-heavy version of Metropolis, using its true crime format to poke around the corners of the DCU that a straightforward Superman movie would never have time for. Gunn and Safran described the approach themselves, saying the show lets them “explore the darker and funnier streets and alleyways of the DCU as Jimmy spotlights the Metropolis criminal justice system,” according to the official series announcement.

Beyond the Ray Sacks mystery, the confirmed cast for ‘The People v. Gorilla Grodd’ is stacked with familiar faces from Gunn’s ‘Superman’ film, including Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant and Wendell Pierce reprising his role as Perry White. Jimmy Tatro provides the voice of Gorilla Grodd himself, while the extended cast includes Mary Holland, Eduardo Franco, Arian Moayed, Dan Perrault, Andrew Leeds and Tim Baltz.

HBO’s executive vice president Amy Gravitt framed the series as a chance to reintroduce familiar DCU characters in an unconventional way, saying the network is “thrilled to bring these iconic DCU characters to HBO Max in a new and unexpected way,” a sentiment echoed in the show’s official announcement. Yacenda and Perrault have similarly described wanting the series to feel “less like a DCU entry and more like an artifact from it,” aiming squarely at comic readers, comedy fans and true crime devotees all at once.

No release date has been set yet for the series, which is still deep in production in Atlanta as these set photos and videos continue trickling out online. That has not stopped fans from combing through every frame for clues, and the Ray Sacks sighting is exactly the kind of detail this particular fandom tends to seize on, especially given how much affection still surrounds ‘Smallville’ nearly two decades after it first aired.

Part of what makes the potential Ray Sacks connection interesting is how it fits into Gunn’s broader pattern of building the DCU as one continuous, densely layered universe rather than a collection of disconnected projects. Slipping in a reference to a show that predates the current DCU reboot entirely suggests the creative team is comfortable pulling from decades of Superman-adjacent media, not just the comics themselves, to flesh out Metropolis as a lived-in place.

Whether Ray Sacks ends up as an actual character running for office on screen or simply a piece of set dressing, the discovery has already done what these kinds of teases are designed to do, keeping fans talking about a show that had already built plenty of buzz on premise alone. For a series about a talking gorilla’s murder trial, a little bit of mystery about who else is walking around Metropolis only adds to the appeal.

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