James Gunn Names Three Actors Who Will Retain Their Parts For The DCU

I like James Gunn’s work. Quite a bit. I think he’s done great work with Guardians of the Galaxy and his Suicide Squad variant. Peacemaker was great. Hell, I even love Slither. But his messaging on his new takeover of the DCU has been…confusing to say the least.

We’ll start with the topline, that Gunn has named three specific actors who will definitely retain their roles going forward into the DCU. That starts with John Cena’s Peacemaker, no shock given that it’s Gunn’s show. Next is Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller from multiple Suicide Squads and also Peacemaker, the actor that goes back the furthest in the DCEU out of these. And then there’s newcomer Xolo Maridueña, the Cobra Kai star turned Blue Beetle in the most recent DC film. It’s hard to know whether to even call that DCEU or DCU at this point because of Gunn’s next quote.

Gunn has now said that “nothing is canon” DC until Creature Commandos and Superman Legacy hit, even though the above actors will retain those roles. So that means what happened in the projects they starred in will probably not carry over, nor does it guarantee additional returning cast members. So even though Peacemaker and Amanda Waller are coming along, that doesn’t say, canonize Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn or Jared Leto’s Joker, adjacent to those characters.

Here’s the full Gunn quote which is supposed to provide “clarity,” but god love him, I’m not sure the man knows how to actually explain himself in a coherent fashion, even if this all works out in the end:

“Nothing is canon until Creature Commandos next year – a sort of aperitif to the DCU – & then a deeper dive into the universe with Superman: Legacy after that. It’s a very human drive to want to understand everything all the time, but I think it’s okay to be confused on what’s happening in the DCU since no one has seen anything from the DCU yet. And, yes, some actors will be playing characters they’ve played in other stories & some plot points might be consistent with plot points from the dozens of films, shows & animated projects that have come from DC in the past. But nothing is canon until CC and Legacy.”

What Gunn seems to be describing is…fundamentally how comic books work. We see the same characters but different variants where some things carryover and some don’t. Bruce Wayne’s parents are (almost) always murdered, for instance. But say, other plot points from the DCEU will be lost, no doubt, likely including most Snyder era stuff with Darkseid and the core Justice League. And that’s even if we see some of those actors keep playing those roles like Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman or Jason Momoa’s Aquaman. We know for sure that Superman and Batman are starting from scratch, at least.

Again, it does seem like it would be the better path to do “clean slate” casting at this point, especially with the DCEU era Justice League, and that still could happen. I can see carrying over Cena and Davis. And there’s nothing in Blue Beetle that really “needs” to be canon, other than Xolo himself playing the role. So so far, this seems fine, however weird that explanation is.

My guess is that this will not be quite as confusing as it’s currently being presented, so long as Gunn doesn’t carry over a ton of major DCEU characters and re-canonizes old events. But it’s a while until the DCU starts in earnest, and we won’t really know until then.

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