Superman Is Driving DC Studios’ New Strategy - The New York Times

Superman is returning to theaters — lone now, on with redeeming the world, helium has to beryllium that Warner Bros. has finally, without question, it means it this time, recovered a winning superhero strategy.

DC Studios, a recently formed Warner part dedicated to superhero content, unveiled plans connected Tuesday to reboot Superman onscreen for the archetypal clip successful a generation, tentatively scheduling the yet-to-be-cast “Superman: Legacy” for merchandise successful theaters successful July 2025. James Gunn, known for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is penning the screenplay and whitethorn besides nonstop the movie, which volition absorption connected Superman balancing his Kryptonian practice with his quality upbringing.

“He is kindness successful a satellite that thinks of kindness arsenic old-fashioned,” said Peter Safran, main enforcement of DC Studios, a rubric helium shares with Mr. Gunn.

Moreover, “Superman: Legacy” volition statesman a communicative that volition unfold (Marvel style) crossed astatine slightest 10 interconnected movies and TV shows and see caller versions of Batman, Robin, Supergirl, Swamp Thing and Green Lantern. Those marquee DC Comics characters volition beryllium joined by lesser-known personalities from the DC library, including Creature Commandos and Booster Gold, a clip traveler. One of the shows volition research Themyscira, the mythical land location of Wonder Woman.

The 10 projects volition rotation retired implicit 4 to 5 years — astatine which clip a 2nd batch of related films and shows volition beryllium announced, expanding the “Superman: Legacy” saga to astir a decennary and possibly helping David Zaslav, the main enforcement of Warner Bros. Discovery, to support a committedness to Wall Street astir growth.

“Part of our strategy is thrust the hellhole retired of DC,” Mr. Zaslav said astatine an RBC Capital Markets lawsuit successful November. Discovery took implicit Warner Bros. past twelvemonth arsenic portion of a $43 cardinal merger.

If it each comes to fruition, the “Superman: Legacy” beingness of projects volition adhd to a roster of unrelated superhero movies near implicit from a erstwhile Warner Bros. administration. These movies, sequels all, see “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Joker: Folie à Deux” and “The Batman — Part II.”

Warner Bros. and DC Comics became portion of the aforesaid conglomerate successful 1969, and the workplace has since utilized DC characters to marque much than 40 movies and astatine slightest 30 tv shows, including cartoons. But the DC room has been wide viewed connected Wall Street arsenic underexploited due to the fact that a competing comics-to-screens company, the Disney-owned Marvel, has provided an illustration of what is possible.

Over the past 10 years, Marvel has been a blockbuster machine, delivering slates of interconnected superhero movies that person collected $23 cardinal astatine the planetary container office. Movies based connected DC characters and released by Warner Bros. person generated astir $9 cardinal implicit that period.

Suffice it to say, Warner Bros., which invented the big-budget superhero movie successful 1978 with “Superman,” has been nether unit to get its enactment together. In a restructuring successful October, Mr. Zaslav ended the studio’s decentralized attack to superhero absorption — abstracted movie and tv divisions developed worldly independently, sometimes causing friction — and enactment Mr. Gunn and Mr. Safran successful complaint of superhero films, bid and animated offerings.

“The stakes are monolithic for us, and for Warner Bros. Discovery,” Mr. Safran said.

Mr. Gunn called Warner’s aged strategy “pretty messed up.”

“Nobody was minding the mint,” helium added. “They were conscionable giving distant I.P. similar they were enactment favors to immoderate creator who smiled astatine them.”

Superhero movies stay reliably fashionable astatine the container office, but a glut of them has prompted worries that studios are wearing retired the audience.

“I deliberation it’s real,” Mr. Gunn said, referring to superhero fatigue. “You person to marque the stories divers and different. Good guy, atrocious guy, elephantine happening successful the sky, bully guys triumph — you can’t archer that communicative again. You request to archer stories that are more, you know, morally complex.”