Most of the unrealized projects in the DC Extended Universe really aren’t worth mourning. Was anyone seriously looking forward to a Harley Quinn & Joker solo movie that would’ve seen the return of Jared Leto’s Joker? How was Cyborg supposed to anchor a solo feature? That streaming Wonder Twins movie also doesn’t sound like it would’ve contributed much to the world of cinema. In most cases, DCEU movies that never made it past the concept stage sound like bullets dodged, not tragic unrealized creative potential.
There’s one grand exception to this phenomenon, though, at least for me. Ava DuVernay was once supposed to helm a New Gods movie that she also would’ve written with Tom King (a veteran of the New Gods comics). This big-budget adaptation of absolutely bonkers Jack Kirby material from the 1970s sounds like it could’ve had the potential to be great on many levels. Years after its demise, DuVernay’s New Gods still fascinates me as a grand missed opportunity.
Save for Suicide Squad, the initial DC Extended Universe movies were focused on the biggest DC Comics icons like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Aquaman. By contrast, the New Gods were characters that general audiences had never heard of. Appearences in non-comics media from major New Gods characters like Granny Goodness, DeSaad, and Darkseid were surprisingly numerous (they even made it into Smallville), but they were still little-known by the standards of the general public. Before 2017, none of their mythology had even appeared in a live-action theatrical film.
When Zack Snyder helmed his versions of Superman and Batman, he was following in the footsteps of some of the most influential movies of all time. Ava DuVernay, meanwhile, would’ve had free rein to define what Mister Miracle, Big Barda, Orion, Granny Goodness, and others looked like in live-action. The freedom of no audience expectations, not to mention seeing comic book characters in live-action for the first time, is an immediately exciting prospect. Comments from DuVernay on matters like her favorite New Gods character, meanwhile, thrillingly suggest that this production would’ve been as unabashedly heightened as Kirby’s original artwork.
Speaking of being stylized, New Gods was prepped as the DCEU began taking a direction towards the colorful with Aquaman and Birds of Prey. The monochromatic visual impulses of earlier Zack Snyder DCEU titles had been eschewed in favor of more varied color schemes. With this in mind, the vibrantly colorful costumes and Apokolips environments chronicled in an average New Gods comic could’ve been the perfect extension (or even zenith) of these visual tendencies. What better way to usher in a colorful new era of DC storytelling on the big screen than DuVernay bringing New Gods to life in a comics-accurate fashion?
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With her initial cinematic efforts like Middle of Nowhere, Ava DuVernay immediately established a fascinating creative voice. Her outstanding 2010s productions like Selma, 13th, and When They See Us further reaffirmed what a gifted artist she was. Even her messy inaugural foray into big-budget studio filmmaking, A Wrinkle in Time, still featured plenty of personality and ingenuity absent from other modern kids’ movies. Seeing what an artist of her caliber could’ve done with this eclectic group of DC characters could’ve been something worth treasuring.
Ava DuVernay’s New Gods is also worth mourning because of the crummy circumstances that led to its death. Most DCEU productions were officially dead when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios. New Gods, however, ground to a halt long before that. Allegedly, the use of Apokolips characters like Darkseid and DeSaad in Zack Snyder’s Justice League led to the production’s collapse in 2021. While Warner Bros. was fine with multiple movie versions of Batman and Joker running around, the idea of multiple incarnations of certain New Gods characters existing was too much and spurred the death of DuVernay’s blockbuster.
Such preposterous and nonsensical circumstances inspiring the project’s cancellation make the absence of a finished Ava DuVernay New Gods movie an extra bitter pill to swallow. At least the feature’s far from alone given how many planned DCEU blockbusters ended up going nowhere amidst so much Warner Bros. corporate tomfoolery. However, DuVernay’s New Gods still captivates the imagination with all its potential, unlike other, more rudimentary-sounding potential DCEU films. Something truly great was lost here, particularly in how wonderful it would’ve been to see a filmmaker as impressive as Ava DuVernay be given such an expansive canvas to work with.
Selma is now streaming on Paramount+.
Ava DuVernay was at one point slated to direct a New Gods movie for DC, and though it never happened, it would still be great to see. Read More