James Gunn Reveals The Authority Movie Has Been Shelved
One of the initial projects announced by this new DCU may not happen at all.
In this day and age, it’s not unusual for movie studios and streamers to overpromise and under-deliver. Take, for example, Star Wars’ big 2020 announcement about the next phase of Star Wars TV: only a fraction of the projects announced actually made it to the finish line. With that precedent, fans know to keep their expectations tempered, just in case something happens and plans fall through.
When James Gunn took over as co-President of DC Studios, a similar slew of projects were announced under the broad chapter name of “Gods and Monsters,” akin to Marvel’s “Phase” structure. The initial plan detailed five movies and five TV shows, and while some of those projects have already been hits, like Superman and Peacemaker Season 2, there are still plenty on the way. However, one of the planned movies has stalled completely, and Gunn has just confirmed it’s been shelved indefinitely.
DC Studios co-president James Gunn has revealed that an already announced movie has been shelved.
On Threads, a fan mused about the progress of The Authority, one of the movies announced back in 2023 alongside Superman, Supergirl, Clayface, and Swamp Thing. Another fan chimed in with a theory that Gunn would write the script himself, prompting Gunn himself to chime in. “I would have never had time to do this and although I know this is a popular theory online I never had an intention of writing or directing The Authority,” he wrote. “The script wasn't quite there but more importantly it didn't work in terms of the larger DCU both in terms of the story and practical concerns. Maybe some day. Not soon.”
The Authority is a super-squad of antiheroes who are determined to get the job done no matter what, not bothering with considering morals or laws. Back in 2025, Gunn said at a press event that of all the movies in development, The Authority was proving the most difficult. “Both because of the shifting overall story and because of getting it right in a world with The Boys and a world with all the things that The Authority influenced that came out after it,” he said, according to Gizmodo. “And also having a lot of characters that we’ve fallen in love with, that we’ve already filmed, and have that we want to continue their stories and see them meet each other. And so it’s been — I will admittedly say it’s a little bit more on the back burner right now.”
The Authority’s starkly different code may not mesh with the rest of the DC Universe
Now, it looks like what was on the back burner has now been taken off the heat, decanted into a Tupperware, and placed back on the shelf. In the broad scheme of things, it’s clear to see why this project would stick out from the rest of the slate. Much of this new DCU has been built on a newfound sense of optimism and hope set forward by Superman, and The Authority as a squad is honestly more ethically aligned with Thanos: anything that achieves an end goal is permissible.
But it’s not all bad: after this sad update, another fan asked about the progress of two DC TV series: Booster Gold, the story of a hero riddled with impostor syndrome, and Paradise Lost, a political drama set on Wonder Woman’s homeland of Themyscira. “BG is in development,” Gunn replied. “PL is in extreme development.”
So even if one movie isn’t moving forward at this point, other projects are being fast-tracked in return. But this is just a cost of hearing about projects as soon as they begin development — sometimes, things don’t pan out. It all goes back to that eternal question every fan must ask themselves: is it better to have heard about a project and lost or never to have heard about it at all?
