James Gunn Admits He Has Plans To Bring Marvel Actors Into The DCU: “Always A Part of Our Plans!”
DC Studio boss James Gunn announced the slate developing under his watch but is still figuring out other things. At the top of his list is figuring out who the players are that will fill all the vacant roles, which are legion. The only names we know for sure are Viola Davis and his brother Sean.
Both shall reprise their The Suicide Squad parts, Amanda Waller and Weasel respectively, going forward in new series spinning off from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. Waller has a spinoff coming and Peacemaker Season 2 is planned though developing it will take longer than expected. It’s a safe bet John Cena and Freddie Stroma will be back so we can add their names too.
The future looks particularly bright for Stroma since Gunn likes working with actors that are easy to direct and collaborate with as the latter himself recently tweeted. “What matters most is the actor fits the role [and] they’re easy to work with,” he wrote in a reply to an account urging him to find new blood and not rely on old pals from Marvel.
As it pertains to Stroma, the only thing Gunn cared about was if the British actor was an a-hole so he consulted Elizabeth Banks who knew Stroma from his work with her in Pitch Perfect. “I should thank [her]” he tweeted last year about “an a–hole check.” He added, “(I won’t work with assholes)…she told me he was great [and] she was right!”
Gunn liked working with Stroma and he really liked working with the actors he had in the Guardians of the Galaxy series. He wraps up his writing/directing duties on those Marvel projects this year with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, but as he moves wholly from MCU to DCU he won’t be saying goodbye to everyone. A few people are predicted to make the leap with him.
Among the names Gunn has teased are Dave Bautista and Chris Pratt, two who aren’t a huge shock, and Mantis actress Pom Klementieff. “Pom’s always a part of our plans!” he posted last November responding to speculation. She already appeared in The Suicide Squad as a barfly in Corto Maltese so a foot, and a potential plot thread, are in the door.
The incipient executive later professed how close his Guardians “family” is. “This cast are like my family,” he told Empire. “I cannot tell you how close I am to Chris Pratt and Pom [Klementieff] and Dave [Bautista] and Zoe [Saldaña] and Karen [Gillan]. But I also know I will work…with all those people individually again…Probably at my other job.”
Gunn will work with a lot of new and familiar faces at his new job, some of whom come with red flags. Beyond the prospect of Ezra Miller sticking around after The Flash, and with a reimagining of Supergirl on the horizon, Tom King and Christina Hodson have proverbial seats waiting for them in Gunn’s growing writers’ room.
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