Creature Commandos has just become James Gunn’s third consecutive critically acclaimed project for DC, but it’s his first creative output from his new DCU slate as co-head of DC Studios. Technically speaking, it’s the fifth celebrated project in a row since he oversaw Matt Reeves’ DC Elseworlds’ HBO series The Penguin, as well as the Sundance acquisition of Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. Gunn did not intend for his new animated series to launch the rebooted DC universe, but immediately following the ratings juggernaut that was Peacemaker season one, HBO Max, now Max, asked Gunn if he had another streaming series in him. He proceeded to write all seven episodes of Creature Commandos on spec, and just as he was dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, he was hired by Warner Bros. Discovery to shepherd the entire universe alongside his longtime friend and producer, Peter Safran. Thus, Creature Commandos is first up to bat since the seven-episode series was already in motion.
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In late 2022, after turning in his Creature Commandos scripts, Gunn knew that he needed to hire a showrunner while he and Safran conceived the rest of the DCU’s first chapter. That eight- to 10-year plan is now known as “Gods and Monsters,” featuring a handful of films, TV series and games, including 2025’s Superman, the DCU’s “true beginning.” All the while, Dean Lorey, who co-created Max’s beloved animated series Harley Quinn (2019), was helping Gunn bring Creature Commandos to fruition. But as swamped as Gunn was with Superman and various other tasks, Lorey is grateful that the filmmaker and studio co-chair was still able to be hands-on with Creature Commandos, versus redirecting him to other parties.
“To tell you the truth, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had. I didn’t have to go through anybody else. It was one-stop shopping,” Lorey tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Gunn adds: “[Going through multiple people] can be a pain in the ass. Honestly, [working directly] was something good that I got from Marvel. There was a very clear back and forth [with Marvel], and while there was sometimes arguing in the best of ways, it always led to something different. It wasn’t like people were taking sides. The politics of it was gone, and that’s the way that we did Creature Commandos. It was me working together with Dean to create the best thing, and none of us had egos.”
Creature Commandos takes place shortly after Peacemaker season one, as Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) sidesteps the congressional ruling that she can no longer enlist human prisoners for A.R.G.U.S.’ dangerous missions by now using imprisoned monsters. As a result, Waller hands a new operation and team to Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the father of the fallen Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), who was murdered by Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (John Cena) in Gunn’s DC debut, The Suicide Squad (2021). Grillo’s older Flag will also play a key role in the upcoming Superman film and second season of Peacemaker, all of which serves as an example of the kind of synergy that Gunn hopes to maintain between animation and live-action.
As for the DCU’s upcoming live-action launch, Gunn is currently test-screening Superman (2025), and he remains absolutely bullish about David Corenswet’s Superman/Clark Kent.
“Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, David Corenswet is going to freak everyone out with how great he is,” Gun insists. “He is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, and he can do everything. The man is incredible.”
Gunn has also just wrapped Peacemaker season two, and he’s excited about the deviation that’s coming the audience’s way in late 2025.
“Season two of Peacemaker is also going to take people by surprise,” Gunn shares. “We take a very different route than the first season, and it’s a really magical story that people are going to be blown away by.”
Below, during a conversation with THR, Gunn and Lorey also address the question surrounding what is and isn’t canon from the now-defunct DCEU, as well as a potential second season of Creature Commandos.
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James, when you and Peter Safran brainstormed your master plan for the DCU, what made Creature Commandos the right entry point?
JAMES GUNN Well, it really wasn’t meant to be that. The main thing is that it was already written. (Laughs.) HBO Max asked me to do another show after the success of Peacemaker, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do. Committing to a TV show is a big deal, so I just started playing with different ideas, and then I started writing Creature Commandos on spec. I wrote all seven episodes in a few weeks, and then right around the time that I was finishing those scripts, I got hired as the co-head of DC Studios. So we were ready to go [with Creature Commandos].
Dean, I presume you did double duty between Creature Commandos and Harley Quinn, but once James turned in all the scripts, did he basically pass the baton to you?
DEAN LOREY I supervised production and shepherded it forward, but James was still very involved in every step. We sent him the voice records cut together, the animatics, everything, so James was very much a part of the whole process.
James juggles 700 things at the same time, so I just assumed he had to delegate.
LOREY I don’t know how he does it!
GUNN Every time I dealt with Creature Commandos, it was like Christmas for me. Taking on a project the size of Superman is just crazy. It’s hard and stressful. But the [Creature Commandos] guys were doing such amazing work, and the cast was so incredible. They just kept sending me one great thing after another, but I also really cared about it. The pieces that I care about, I really get into the nitty-gritty of them. Of course, I worked with the actors for the recording of everything, which is relatively simple. At the end of the day, there are seven episodes and they aren’t long. So we recorded everybody doing everything at once, and it wasn’t that much time.
James, having interviewed you for The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, I was worried whether those arcs and storylines would remain valid in the new DCU, and you answered that question almost immediately by referencing events from both. Should we treat Squad and Peacemaker season one as prologues to the DCU?
GUNN Yeah, they’re light canon. Peacemaker is pretty straightforward, with the exception of the appearance by a certain group [the former DCEU’s Justice League] at the end. (Laughs.) They don’t exist yet. But the rule is: If we mention [something from the past] in one of the new DCU shows [and movies], then it happened. So that’s the way we’re dealing with it.
Dean, it’s probably pretty rare to receive notes from a writer-director who’s also the co-head of a studio. How would you describe that experience?
LOREY (Laughs.) To tell you the truth, it was one of the best experiences I’ve had. Being the creator of the show, James’ notes were very clear and very specific. I also knew that once we did them, I didn’t have to go through anybody else. It was one-stop shopping.
GUNN Yeah, [going through multiple people] can be a pain in the ass. Honestly, it was something good that I got from Marvel. Normally, when you work on a movie, it’s the director’s voice, the studio’s voice and the producers’ voice. Sometimes, it’s the production company, and oftentimes, all those things can really fight each other. And working with Marvel, it was me as a director and them as the producer/studio. So there was a very clear back and forth, and while there was sometimes arguing in the best of ways, it always led to something different. It wasn’t like people were taking sides. The politics of it was gone, and that’s the way that we did Creature Commandos. It was me working together with Dean to create the best thing, and none of us had egos.
James, now that it’s been a couple years, what’s been the most eye-opening aspect so far about co-running DC Studios?
GUNN I can’t do everything, so it’s about using my time as best I can. There’s a lot of things I have to turn over to the guys to do, and it’s about really putting my time where it needs to be. I’m a micromanager. When I’m doing a movie, I’m looking at every single thing. So it’s definitely been wearing, and honestly, I can’t do what I’ve been doing the past [however many years].
Dean, people are going to try to extract information out of James today in some clever and not-so-clever ways. Did your own curiosity ever get the best of you with regard to the Commandos and their live-action prospects?
LOREY Well, I wouldn’t give away any state secrets, but I haven’t tried to grill James for anything about these characters. I’d mostly like to be surprised. I hope that James writes the next batch of stuff and that I can read it all in the same way that I did this past batch. So that’s how I’d like to find out unless I’m the one writing.
GI Robot (Sean Gunn) in live-action would be quite something. Has that subject been broached in some capacity?
GUNN Yeah, we’ve talked about all of these characters in live-action and how we would do them, if we did them, in live-action. I don’t want to give away any secrets, but we use some technology in Superman that’s completely new in regards to this kind of stuff. So we would know exactly how to do GI Robot.
Is the plan to still have the principal voice actors play their characters in live-action?
GUNN Absolutely. A hundred percent.
And you’re aiming for consistency between both mediums?
GUNN That’s right. Everything is very consistent in terms of the politics of the world and where the world is at and what’s going on; who are the metahumans in power, who are the metahumans not in power; who are the power brokers, who are not the power brokers. So we see a glimpse of it here, but we see more of it in Superman and Peacemaker.
Frankenstein is back in the zeitgeist in a big way thanks to Poor Things and Lisa Frankenstein, as well as your show and upcoming movies from Guillermo del Toro and Maggie Gyllenhaal. How much of a left turn did you try to take?
GUNN We took elements of what the DC Frankenstein has been as this mercenary. But we also took a lot of things from Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein for both the Bride and for Frankenstein, and we put them together in a way that added some other interesting elements. But I love Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and part of the real fun for me was playing with that canon in the same way that we’re playing with the DC canon.
LOREY And David Harbour’s performance adds a whole other dimension to our Frankenstein.
GUNN Indira [Varma’s] Bride, too. The two of them are just incredible.
Dean, most of the episodes provide backstory for the Commandos. Was Weasel’s (Sean Gunn) backstory the one that most knocked you sideways?
LOREY Yeah, I found his backstory to be heartbreaking and touching and emotional in ways that you would never associate with Weasel. It was by far the most surprising backstory.
James, when you call Michael Rooker now, does he answer the phone by saying, “Yes, I’ll do it”?
GUNN Yeah, he does. He really does. He does me favors when I need him, and he’s amazing in his episode of Creature Commandos. Linda Cardellini, who’s another one of my close friends who I’ve worked with a lot, is amazing as Weasel’s lawyer, Elizabeth [Bates], in episode four. So I have this group of people who never ever let me down, like Nathan Fillion. Gregg Henry, who’s amazing, is in this season. So there’s just a lot of really wonderful actors that I’ve formed bonds with, and because I know the ins and outs of what they can do, I use them as appropriately as I can.
Hollywood schedules are impossible to align, but were you ever able to record any of the actors together?
LOREY Yeah, we were able to do that. We got several together. We had Indira and Zoë [Chao] together. They were great fun to watch, and they were fangirling over each other. It was terrific. Who were the others?
GUNN Grillo and Harbour. And Grillo and Maria [Bakalova].
LOREY That’s right.
GUNN There are these couples throughout the show, and it was important to get the energy between them so that it didn’t read like your usual thing with one line, one line, one line, one line. We wanted to really have this conversationalist, back-and-forth energy, and Indira and Zoë added little things afterwards to really keep it alive and make it feel like it’s real. So it was important to us from the beginning to keep that naturalistic style.
Has there been informal talk of a Creature Commandos season two if all goes well?
GUNN We’ve talked about it, yeah.
In a not-so-clever way, can I ask how Clark Kent and Christopher Smith’s (John Cena) new stories are feeling right now?
GUNN I feel great. Superman is an enormous bear of a movie. It’s completely different from this show in every way, but it’s very much fantastic as well. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, David Corenswet is going to freak everyone out with how great he is. He is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, and he can do everything. The man is incredible.
And then season two of Peacemaker is also going to take people by surprise. We take a very different route than the first season, and it’s a really magical story that people are going to be blown away by. Frank Grillo, of course, is a major part of that [and Superman], as his character, Rick Flag Sr., from Creature Commandos.
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Creature Commandos premieres Dec. 5 on Max.
