James Gunn Promises the Right Kind of World-Building for the DCU

James Gunn has assured fans that he and his team at DC are thinking about all possibilities as he promises that the world map of the DCU will be detailed, and presumably, properly planned out.

Creating a cohesive and believable world for characters to inhabit can be difficult and that’s doubly true if you’re creating a huge interconnected universe of heroes and villains. One fan asked the director if he had considered how the world of the DC universe would look and Gunn soothed fans’ fears about the upcoming reboot pretty quickly.

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Zack Snyder’s DC universe had a number of flaws, pretty much all of them came down to lack of planning from both Snyder and the studio (mostly the studio). The films were rushed and no single plan was ever stuck to for more than a couple of movies, with things seemingly made up as they went along. 

This problem even permeated the layout of Snyder’s DCEU with Gotham being moved across the bay from Metropolis in order to make the plot of Batman Vs. Superman work. While this isn’t the kind of thing that bothers general audiences, hardcore fans were pretty vocal about the “awful” change.

It wasn’t about sticking to the source material, but more to do with the landscape of the DCEU being changed to fit a narrative that wouldn’t even matter that much in the long term. In a way it showed Warner Bros. lack of planning regarding the whole project; Batman was rushed into the story and Gotham was plonked next to Metropolis so we could get this rushed conflict between the two most iconic DC movies.

Gunn has more control over the DCU

But it looks like that won’t be how Gunn’s going to approach things. To be fair, unlike Snyder, Gunn has complete control over pretty much every detail in the DCU. Perhaps he’ll stick closer to the source material in terms of where everything is. Supposedly Gotham is in New Jersey and Metropolis is in Delaware. Fans are also hopeful that each city will be given it’s unique personality from the comics.

I’m really interested to see the cities be their own thing vs a city that’s very clearly New York or Chicago, etc. like it has its own personality

It’s a pretty unique problem to have to consider when you think about it. Marvel has always used real cities rather than made up ones, so the likes of Kevin Feige never would have had to think about where each location is.

It’s pretty reassuring to know that James Gunn is going this deep with the details of the world he’s setting up. It bodes well for the DCU’s future and proves that Gunn is definitely committed to planning out his cinematic universe the right way, rather than making things up as he goes along.