This week, as new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran outlined the comics franchise powerhouse’s next steps, it was revealed that DC Universe Chapter 1: Gods & Monsters’ 10-title film and TV slate will include one animated series project for HBO Max: Creature Commandos. (Of course, we might get more toons confirmed for Chapter 1, as Gunn explained the new announcements are “half of it.”)
The co-CEOs explained that the Creature Commandos’ expansive story, which will unfold over seven episodes, would be too costly to do in a live-action series. “Sometimes [animation is] a fun way to introduce characters or introduce stories that would frankly be too expensive to be done in live-action,” Safran told the press gathered at DC Studios on Monday. Gunn estimated that the story they are working with would run to $35-40 million per episode ($245-280 million for the full series) if shot in live action.
Introduced in DC’s Weird War Tales in 1980, the Creature Commandos are a military unit of monstrous superhumans, originally during World War II: werewolf Warren Griffith, vampire Vincent Velcro, Frankenstein’s monster-type Elliot “Lucky” Taylor and Dr. Myrna Rhodes, a gorgon, joined by their human Lieutenant, Matthew Shrieve. The squad was created in-story by a secret government biotech/necromancy outfit dubbed Project M, and on the page by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artist Pat Broderick. The supernatural soldiers got their own comics miniseries in 2000 (written by Tim Truman, drawn by Scot Eaton), which overclocked the creatures and added new members for a battle to save their dimension.
“Creature Commandos is based on the great team from DC,” Gunn said of the series. “What we’re doing with the DCU is, we are having animation tied directly into live action. Television, movies and games all intertwine within the same universe. We’re going to cast actors that are going to be able to play the characters in this as well as in other things, some of which we’ve already cast. I’ve written all seven episodes of the show, and it’s in production. So that’s the first thing, and I love it.”
The commandos have previously been animated for Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011) the DC Nation shorts series (2014).
The Gods & Monsters slate includes:
- Superman: Legacy (film) – release date July 11, 2025.
- The Authority (film)
- Booster Gold (series)
- The Brave and the Bold (film)
- Creature Commandos (animated series)
- Lanterns (series)
- Paradise Lost (series)
- Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (film)
- Swamp Thing (film)
- Waller (series)
[Source: ComicBook.com]
