There’s been another shake-up in the DC Comics film world. Warner Bros. has officially halted development on not one but two of its upcoming projects: the Aquaman spinoff The Trench (from James Wan) and New Gods (which was to be directed by Ava DuVernay).
“As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward,” Warner Bros. and DC said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future.”
According to the new report, Warner Bros. appears to be placing its heaviest focus with DC Films on pairing them up with HBO Max series, like it’s doing with The Batman and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which are both getting streaming spin-offs. As for New Gods, which was in development from DuVernay and award-winning Mister Miracle writer Tom King, it appears that releasing the Snyder Cut affected DuVernay’s project. Via THR:
New Gods was complicated by the fact that its villain, Darkseid, just appeared as a major foil in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and there was a desire to have space between the latter and any new appearances.
Despite the HBO Max-associated news for DuVernay, though, she’s still working on Naomi, a DC series planned for the CW.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)