r/DCULeaks

Creature Commandos Season 2 will be released on HBOMax in 2027.

From the article:

>To open the program, Warner Bros. aired a montage highlighting its major successes of 2025, while also looking ahead to the coming years.

>[The Batman], portrayed by Robert Pattinson, will return on September 29th, 2027, in a sequel to the first film, which attracted over 3 million viewers in 2022. Barry Keoghan, Andy Serkis, Scarlett Johansson, and Sebastian Stan are also part of the cast.

From the article:

>Usually, test scores go up, up, and away. But this March, the scores for Supergirl actually went down when DC Studios held a bakeoff, testing competing cuts from filmmaker Craig Gillespie and from the studio, run by James Gunn and Peter Safran.

>It was a moment of extreme disappointment for those involved, as the stakes were high, particularly for DC. Supergirl would be a key test for the Warner Bros. division as its first feature not written and directed by Gunn, following last year’s inaugural outing, Superman.

>It needed to work to prove the studio could expand beyond projects directed by Gunn, the A-list filmmaker behind the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad — and the very public face of the brand.

>Months later, the Supergirl outcome is now well known. The movie, starring Milly Alcock as the title character and budgeted in the $180 million range, crashed and burned on its opening weekend, grossing just $37.1 million, even lower than the reviled, DC-centric bomb, 2024’s Joker: Folie a Deux, which opened to $37.6 million and was not made by Gunn and Safran.

>And while one failure need not be an indictment of a slate, and there have been all sort of think pieces as to why the movie failed – was Alcock right for the role? Was Gillespie right for the take? Are audiences tired of superheroes? Was opening the movie in late June a mistake? Was the budget too high? — the fate of Supergirl may have been seeded early on.

>Gunn and Gillespie had creative differences over the direction of the movie, numerous sources tell The Hollywood Reporter, and the film never found its footing in the post-production process. The test scores, which are counted on a scale out of 100 points, never escaped the 60s, according to multiple insiders. Another insider said the movie’s top score was 70.

>“’They were not creatively aligned’ is the polite way of describing things,” said one insider.

>Other insiders dispute this characterization, saying Gunn, Safran and Gillespie had the normal amount of healthy friction any filmmaker and studio have as part of the process of making a movie better. And multiple sources say the duo respect the filmmaking chops of Gillespie, known for guiding Margot Robbie to an Oscar nomination for I, Tonya.

>Filming wrapped in May 2025, and as early as the fall of that year, the studio and Gillespie knew the movie wasn’t working. After a December test screening proved to be just okay, the studio decided to take matters into its own hands and took charge of the post-production to make its own cut. Gunn also enlisted writer Jeremy Slater, who previously wrote an unmade feature based on DC superhero team The Authority, to help with the post-production process.

>The extent of Slater’s involvement is unclear, although it seems he helped write scenes for a nine-day shoot of additional photography. Original screenwriter Ana Nogueira remained involved in the post-production process as well. One issue at play was the climactic fight, which was reconfigured.

>Other issues with the movie are unclear, but it is known that music was a key friction point. From his first Guardians of the Galaxy movie on, Gunn established himself as the master of the movie soundtrack and the all-important needle drop, earning praise for finding the right song and dropping it at the right time. Gillespie also has a reputation for melding music to movies, as seen in Cruella, his 2021 movie that cast Disney villainess Cruella de Vil as a punk rock rebel in London’s fashion scene.

>The movie had a least four test screenings, according to sources, with screenings held in December 2025 as well as February and March of this year. And while social media users and critics are dunking on the movie’s use of a cover of the Jimmy Eat World song 'The Middle', the big needle drop in the final set piece at the February screening was a cover version of Cyndi Lauper’s 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'. That song choice came from Gunn, but it ultimately was abandoned for the Jimmy Eat World cover, also a Gunn choice.

>The movie employed two editors. There was Tatiana S. Riegel, Gillespie’s longtime post partner who edited his Lars and the Real Girl, I, Tonya, and Cruella. And there was Fred Raskin, Gunn’s longtime cutter who worked on all the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and Gunn’s DC series Peacemaker. (Raskin is also Quentin Tarantino’s go-to editor.) He was brought on later in the process and proved a key instrument in the studio’s slowly heavying hand.

>There were signs that things were getting better. Deep into winter, test scores improved and hit the low 70s. However, rather than continue to tinker away on that cut, the studio decided to force a bakeoff by creating two cuts, one by Gillespie and one by the studio.

>It is unclear what major differences emerged, but one source says Gillespie’s version was 11 minutes longer and featured more of the villain, Krem, played by Matthias Schoenaerts. When the two competing versions tested, the scores surprisingly dropped significantly, although the studio’s inched out ahead of Gillespie’s…but by only two points, according to sources. Gillespie’s version scored strongly on song choices, pacing and villain. Eking out a win, even a middling one, the studio chose its cut as the one to go into theaters. A studio insider says the differences were not particularly pronounced.

>Studio insiders paint the back-and-forth process as routine, but others, including one franchise filmmaker who spoke anonymously for this story but was not involved in Supergirl, held the opposite view.

>“It happens more than you think, but it’s not normal,” said the filmmaker of the bakeoff. “If a studio is going to put money into the test process, it means they feel strongly about certain things.”

>The movie was never tested again. (As a point of comparison, the canceled Batgirl and the box office disappointment Shazam! Fury of the Gods tested in the in the 60s, like most of Supergirl’s tests.). And from that point on, if Gillespie believed strongly that something should be in the movie, he had to advocate for it, said one source.

>“While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” Safran to the New York Times, marking a rare time a studio chief commented on a bomb on opening weekend.

>And in many ways, the strategy remains intact. Despite the setback, Gunn, and Safran will continue to guide the ship. It is unclear when the the duo’s contracts are up, but sources believe it is either the end of 2026 of the end of 2027. By then, DC Studios will have released not only Clayface, the modestly budgeted horror movie centered on the Batman villain, but also Man of Tomorrow, which Gunn is currently directing and which is slated to open July 9, 2027. The Batman, Part II, from Matt Reeves, is also in production and has an Oct. 1, 2027 date, but stands separate from the DCU.

>And Gunn will continue to exercise his ideas, especially his penchant for spotlighting lesser known side characters. A Superman spinoff focusing on Jimmy Olsen, played by scene-stealing Skyler Gisondo, is getting a comedic take with mockumentary series DC Crime that will shoot in this fall.

>There is also a series focused on Mr. Terrific, played by Superman breakout Edi Gathegi, that is in active development with Allan Heinberg (The Sandman) writing the pilot.

>But Supergirl’s failure does put a scrutinizing spotlight on Gunn, who has positioned himself as the face of the company as no other studio head has before, thanks to his prodigious output on social media and comments in the press about quality control.

>Other studio heads, such as Marvel’s Kevin Feige or Warners’ Pam Abdy, are known to get vigorously involved in the post-production process. But none are filmmakers making their own movies while also running, or co-running, a major studio division. There is almost no modern precedent (Steven Speilberg runs Amblin, a production company, not a studio arm. Rob Reiner was a partner at Castle Rock, a large scale entity that was run by Alan Horn. More recently, Frozen filmmaker Jennifer Lee ran Walt Disney Animation Studios until 2024 before stepping back to refocus on directing.)

>The challenge for Gunn, and thus DC Studios, is to navigate the fine line of being filmmaker friendly while also trusting his strong artistic point of view that has guided him all his career.

>DC Studios, however, has other challenges looming larger than Supergirl’s failure or the villainy of Brainiac. There are the anxieties of David Ellison’s Paramount’s upcoming acquisition of Warners.

>And perhaps the biggest challenge ahead for Gunn and Safran may be guiding a superhero studio right as superhero movies are no longer a a bulletproof genre for moviegoers

>“Gen Z does not care about superhero movies,” noted one studio head. “That genre belongs to millennials.”

ApocHorseman also says he's not holding his breath on any DCU Batman new or updates anytime soon.

ApocHorseman reinforced his comment regarding the DCU Batman casting rumor the next day:

>"The news is that there’s no news at all haha. [DC's] not casting yet. There is no DCU Batman yet."

Cryptic posted an additional comment regarding yesterday's Clayface screening:

>"One more tidbit - The design of Clayface is said to look similar to that of his counterpart in Batman: The Animated Series."

Few additional ApocHorseman Q&A nuggets:

Q: "Is Greg Mottola directing [the Bane & Deathstroke film]?"

A: "He’s not set to yet, but he’s still in the mix."

Q: "So all the Batman and Wonder Woman rumours were wrong?"

A: "Yes."

Q: "Bane and Deathstroke + BATB 2028?"

A: "BATB maybe 2029, but Bane/Deathstroke def looking like 2028."

Q: "When you think Wonder Woman?"

A: "It’s hard to say when the script is still being written."

Q: "Hey bro, [are] Lobo and Peacemaker still in Man of Tomorrow? I remember your article said it."

A: "I always said that was just a rumor I heard. Haven’t heard anything since."

Q: "I’m not asking if you know but what is the likelihood of one of the superpowered characters being the Flash? Or at least some character of note?"

A: "I think it’s unlikely that it’s Flash or a major character but let’s see."

Apoc also replied to a [now-deleted] comment regarding a possible Batman appearance for Clayface:

>"I wouldn’t bank on that."

From the article:

>DC Studios’ next film, Clayface, is holding more test screenings following what seemed to be a very positive first screening, at least from online reports. Now the film is already going back for more, we can exclusively reveal that the second test screening is happening right now.

>We can reveal that, surprisingly, a second round of test screenings will be taking place tonight at the Warner Bros. Lot in Burbank, California. The last screening resulted in positive reactions, with some emphasis placed on the film needing a perfected edit, whilst most reactions focused on praising gore. With about three months until release, Clayface is deep in the post-production process and is likely close to a finished product.

>Last week we revealed that Aaron Paul, best known as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, had been cast in Clayface in a minor role, and whilst the internet is torn on whether he is a gang member or Matt Hagen’s (Tom Rhys Harries) father, the truth remains to be seen. Neither Paul or DC Studios have yet to confirm the casting.

From the article:

>Shortly after the release of DC Studios’ Superman, it was announced a series centered on Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen was in development for the DC Universe. I later reported that the series would be a true crime documentary series revolving around Jimmy investigating different villains in the DCU. Nearly a year later, the series is in pre-production. HBO is declining to comment.

>Sources tell Nexus Point News that production is scheduled to begin at the end of August and continue through October of this year in Atlanta. Although NPN originally reported that production would take place alongside Man of Tomorrow, budgetary reasons delayed the series’ greenlight and delayed production so the series will begin shooting right as Man of Tomorrow wraps. Sources also tell Nexus Point News that casting is currently underway for the co-lead of the series, Grodd. Actors with comedic backgrounds are being considered for the role and that this will be a voiceover role. Other superpowered characters are being cast for the series along with a lawyer role, possibly hinting at the series featuring Grodd on trial.

>The series was developed by Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda (American Vandal) who are also writing, directing, showrunning and executive producing. James Gunn and Peter Safran will serve as executive producers as well. Gisondo (Licorice Pizza, The Righteous Gemstones) reprises his role as Jimmy Olsen from 2025’s Superman. Other members of the Daily Planet crew are expected to reprise their roles in the series as well as Man of Tomorrow.

>DC Studios’ Jimmy Olsen and Grodd series will commence production this Summer for HBO Max.

John Campea's full quote reagrding DCU Batman:

>"I think I know who Batman is. I think I know who DCU Batman is. I think [DC's] cast him. I had somebody write to me about a particular person that they believe it just got cast. I get a lot of those I don't pay attention to a lot of them. But then, I heard from somebody else who's a little bit more well positioned that verified that it looks like this is the guy and they don't know I talked to the first person at all. So, I sent that pick to a Hollywood producer I know and like what do you think? So, I think I know who it is. I'm not going to say it right now, but I will say this: it's not a name I would've guessed and I don't think it's a bad name, but it's not a name I would've guessed. Yeah, not a name I would've guessed. I'm going to keep putting out feelers because I don't want to say who I believe is going to be the next Batman until I'm a little more certain because yeah, I don't want to spread misinformation. So, we'll see."

Video Version.

Campea gave an additional detail regarding the DCU Batman casting rumor a few days later:

>"There are actually three names. One of them is the primary one. One is the one that I think looks like is going to be them and then there's two others whose names I know they've talked to..."

Podcast Version: [1:26:55] | Video Version: [1:25:26]

• Podcast Version: [57:46]

• Video Version: [56:06]

• Podcast Version: [1:40:17]

• Video Version: [1:30:42]

From the interview article:

>It took more than five-and-a-half years, and countless hours reading comic books, for screenwriter Ana Nogueira to get to this moment: watching Supergirl fly onto the silver screen in her full glory.

>“I’ve seen the movie many, many times, but I had never seen it on a big screen,” Nogueira tells Variety about finally getting to watch Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock as the superheroine Kara Zor-El, at its Brooklyn premiere on Monday night. “So that was very cool. Just the size of it was really amazing.”

>The scale of writing a superhero movie is something Nogueira has tried not to let get in her head over the half-decade she’s worked with DC Studios to craft a solo adventure for the Last Daughter of Krypton.

>“It’s been a really long journey,” she says, smiling over Zoom as she reflects on it all. “It’s so beyond that I can’t totally put it into words. It’ll probably hit me in a few months, but right now I’m just putting one foot in front of the other.”

>Nogueira, an actor and playwright-turned-screenwriter, was originally tapped to pen a Supergirl script when Warner Bros. was developing the movie as a spinoff of The Flash. But when James Gunn and Peter Safran were named co-CEOs of DC Studios in 2022, they decided to take the DCU in a different direction — and brought Nogueira along for the ride. In fact, they were so enamored with her take on the Supergirl story — both in its original iteration and her revised pitch, based on Tom King’s 'Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow', which follows Kara and a young alien girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) on a quest for vengeance — that Nogueira will also pen DC’s upcoming live-action Teen Titans movie, as well as a Wonder Woman film.

>“Look, I’ve been screenwriting for a long time, and you can go through drafts and drafts and drafts, and it doesn’t happen, or it gets really close, you’re about to be greenlit and something falls apart, so for it all to happen so quickly was nuts and abnormal, for sure,” Nogueira says.

>But what really made the Supergirl experience unique was that the creatives, including director Craig Gillespie, were all on the same page from the jump. “We just all saw the same thing,” she says. “And we also had Tom King’s comic, which was so helpful, but also [knowing] that you have to leave some stuff behind.”

>Adapting well-loved source material is no small feat, especially when introducing a character whose backstory is known to some — like viewers of the CW series, or the namesake 1984 movie — but others only know her as Superman’s cousin. Dealing with an epic, interplanetary story raises the stakes even further. “It can feel really far away from us,” Nogueira says. “I remember trying to dig into the reality of it. You’re just a 14-year-old girl being sent away to save your life. I remember finally cracking that and it feeling very satisfying.”

>Read on as Nogueira details her process of scripting Supergirl and some of the film’s key differences from the "Woman of Tomorrow' storyline.

>Midway through the movie, Kara’s mother delivers a line that ultimately becomes the core takeaway. On her deathbed, she tells her daughter, “Just be good. That doesn’t mean you cannot be tough. That doesn’t mean you must be nice. Just be good and do what is right. Protect others who cannot protect themselves.” Where did that dialogue spark from?

>There’s not a lot about her parents in the lore and canon — or at least not that I had touched on — and it was just the fun of [wondering] who did she get what trait from. I imagine her mom as being this deep, earthy woman; she’s not from the House of El, like she’s not Jor-El and Zor-El. So, I’m like, “Who is this woman that he married? And what does she bring to the table if she’s not from this more aristocratic family?” I imagined her as being this woman who was so sure of who she is, and isn’t really afraid, and is really thoughtful. So, I was like, “What if [Kara] got this from her mom? What if her softness is from her dad, and her edge is from her mom?”

>Fans are eager to see what happened on Krypton and what her experience was like in Argo City. What was it like to get to introduce that aspect of the DCU, since we don’t get that in Superman?

>It was a little bit of a journey, because there are different versions of her backstory, and the one directly from 'Woman of Tomorrow' was what I believe was in my first draft — which is that she’s there when the core implodes. There are all these little things that work in comics, but then suddenly in a script, they don’t work, because then there’s a whole aspect where she gets stuck in the Phantom Zone for a decade. It suddenly took over the movie. It’s like you either need to say it in a sentence, or it takes over the movie, and that doesn’t totally work. It was almost crafting a new version of her backstory, because the one that we’ve known for so long is that she’s actually older than Clark/Superman, and she gets stuck.

>That felt like a big responsibility to take on, to change it from what is canon and what is lore. But I still tried to get to the root of what matters about that: She had a whole life and childhood somewhere, and that it was lost to her. It was Krypton, and everything Krypton is, but it’s almost like it could be anywhere; any home that you grow up in is going to be meaningful to you, whether that’s your house in Ohio or your house on another planet. So, I just tried to zero in on that.

>It also adds that extra layer to why her dog, Krypto, is home to her; he’s the only thing that she brought with her, the only tangible reminder of her parents.

>That was always in [the script], that he comes to her in this moment of need, even when it was in an earlier draft that she was there at the destruction of the planet. I always had him being this little puppy that she feels like she simultaneously saves — as we meet him in the movie, he’s obviously just a stray rummaging through some like trash, and so she saves him — and he saves her simultaneously. One of the things about animals is that the relationship is so pure because it’s pretty wordless.

>You just know each other, and you don’t need to explain yourself ever to a pet. They just love you for exactly who you are. Kara struggles with that, because she can be a little bit difficult. I just think that that’s quite universal for anybody who’s ever loved an animal. It’s a very specific relationship.

>Lobo, the cigar-smoking alien bounty hunter played by Jason Momoa, was originally in the 'Woman of Tomorrow' comic, but got cut from the story. Take me through the decision to add him back for the movie?

>So that was brought to me. [James Gunn and Peter Safran] were like, “We want to do ‘Woman of Tomorrow,’ and we want you to find a way to put Lobo in. We think Lobo has a place in this.” I think their thinking was we know Jason Momoa is interested in this, and how can you turn that down? He’s so excellent in it, and you have to find a place when somebody is willing to go there. But at the same time, it also makes sense, because it’s intergalactic. It’s hard to bring Lobo to Earth — he’s always taken place in outer space — so they’re like, “This is an opportunity to bring in this character that would be hard to bring in.”

>I knew Tom King had based the comic on True Grit, but originally, Lobo was the bounty hunter and Kara was the girl. Then he was like, “That doesn’t quite work.” He flipped it, and he brought in Ruthye. But when I was trying to bring in Lobo, I was like, “There is a third character in True Grit: Matt Damon’s character,” so if we follow that structure, there’s still room for this guy who is like a frenemy to the two of them. And Lobo is the ultimate frenemy.

>Ruthye is the narrator of the comic, but in the film, it’s more about seeing the action through her eyes. How did you go about shifting that perspective?

>In the original draft of the script, the movie opened with meeting Ruthye and getting to know her. But what we realized is that comic readers know Supergirl really, really, really well, so they are OK with meeting her through somebody else’s eyes. But for the movie-going public, Supergirl is not Batman; we haven’t seen her parents die a bunch of times [like Bruce Wayne’s], we don’t know it that well. I’ve seen Spider-Man get bitten by a radioactive spider a bunch of times, but we don’t have that with her. So, we realized we had to onboard the audience to [Kara] as the focus of the movie, not just through Ruthye.

>But we wanted to maintain the sense of wonder of this little girl seeing this extraordinary woman and wanting more from [her]. There’s this element of [Kara] not totally living up to her potential, so we wanted to maintain that, but take the voiceover Ruthye out of it.

>The film is about two young women learning to save themselves — and each other. But they also save all these other girls who’ve been kidnapped by the Brigands. How did that come to be?

>So, that is not in the comic. I put it in for very boring writer reasons: in the comic, there’s this central planet where there’s been this horrific act in the past — essentially a genocide, an ethnic cleansing — and you find out that Krem was in some way involved. What’s really important about this is them coming and seeing loss that is not perfectly reflective of theirs, but just that deep pain that these girls have been through. And we also had to see that Krem is just like a total POS; that this guy is somebody that we are going to want to see meet a certain end. But I needed it to be something that was happening in the present and not the past, because in the comic, you can jump around to the past, but you can’t do that here. I needed something to feel really immediate, like there was saving to be done now.

>I also wanted it to be something that specifically put our girls in jeopardy, so that they would be a target. Because otherwise, I don’t know why the Brigands would come after them. So, it’s those silly, boring writerly things that then end up leading to a larger plot. And it just tracked for me that the Brigands are an all-male race: What do they need?

>The final battle sees an emotional breakthrough for Kara and Ruthye, but also a very final moment for Krem. It also leads us to what we’re going to see for Supergirl when she joins Superman in Man of Tomorrow. How did you go about crafting the ending?

>The ending between Kara and Krem was always in it, from the pitch — truly from the very beginning. Because the comic ends with Ruthye killing him, but in the far, far future. We knew we weren’t gonna be able to do that kind of time jump, and I find it’s quite a dark ending of the comic. He essentially has changed, and she kills him anyway, because she still just has this anger, and you understand there’s this element of deserve, right? So, we wanted to craft a villain who would deserve this, but we also wanted Kara to really care about preserving Ruthye’s innocence, and to feel like she could take on [killing him], that she could be the one to bring justice to this man, and do it without burdening this child. It’s different for Supergirl, and I think it will feel different for audiences.

>But I also find it really interesting because it means she has her own moral compass going forward. One that is separate from what Superman’s famous moral compass is: that he never takes a life. It’s really exciting to see. I have no idea what happens between the two of them in Man of Tomorrow, that’s above my pay grade. But it’s really exciting to think about them going forward and having these different viewpoints on how you deal with villains.

>James Gunn and Peter Safran kept you in the fold on Superman to know about the connective tissue to Supergirl, but I understand not giving you all the deets on the next one, because you’re a little busy crafting Wonder Woman and Teen Titans. What stage are those two in?

>Oh, they’re so early. They’re in very different stages, I’ll say that. They’re all just such great characters, and I can’t believe I get to figure out what I would do with them the way that we did with Kara and Supergirl. But it’s still early days on both.

>What was it like to get the green light from James and Peter, and to know that you were going to continue in this universe?

>It’s a huge compliment and a vote of confidence. It’s honestly quite overwhelming. I can’t even think of the size of it. I just really try to keep my head down and make sure that I like the work that I’m doing, and that I think that it’s good work. I can’t write something that I don’t like. I can’t write something that I don’t see. I don’t have that gear. So, taking in how big it is is something I actually try not to even think about. I just try to stick to the script.

Interviewer:

>"When I first heard this movie was being made, an adaptation of ['Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow'] of all comics to adapt, you know, the first thing that came to mind was how do they do the visuals because that comic looks absolutely mad. And it was interesting that you went kind of in the opposite direction, but you went for [a] more shadowy kind of look, which I really like. You talk about like choosing that direction like the shadows are like pops of color here and there.

Craig Gillespie:

>"I very deliberately didn't look at Tom King's book when I first got the script. I went off of Anna [Nogueira's] script. And there was a grit to that and I really wanted to come from character. [Kara]'s going to all of these different worlds that are on the fringe of society. I wanted to fill the poverty. I wanted to fill the crime and the dust and the texture. And I wanted to...I just had this initial instinct that I wanted it to feel like a space we hadn't felt before and there's this real opportunity to really get into the Underworld and so I started with that and pulled a lot of visuals before I went back and looked at the comic book and they were the visuals I showed to James Gunn and Peter Safran. About 120 images of what I wanted this film to be. And I...and again, I wanted to prolong [Kara] not being in a superhero outfit as long as possible and give her this grit and they leaned into it, which was amazing."