Gunn Names Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as DC's Core Characters

James Gunn has named Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as the "diamond characters" at the centre of DC's film universe. He says these are the characters the studio will focus on most. He set out the plan in an interview with Variety, published on 29 October 2026.

Gunn also named three smaller characters that DC could build up into diamonds over time: Krypto, John Stewart and Peacemaker. The term is studio shorthand for characters with the widest appeal, the ones a franchise leans on.

The plan itself is older. In 2022, Gunn and Peter Safran told a virtual Warner Bros. Discovery town hall that they had mapped out an 8- to 10-year plan for DC. Gunn now says that roadmap was never only a list of story points. It also covered how DC as a whole would run, including how much freedom filmmakers would get, how many tones the films would use, and how ratings (the age guides that tell audiences who a film is for) would be handled. He said the plan drew on influences from Star Wars and George R.R. Martin.

Not every DC story will connect in the same way. Gunn said some films will stand alone, in the manner of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and he pointed to Clayface as an example. Others will sit inside a larger narrative, and he cited the Superman Saga as that kind of project.

Even the linked films, he said, should work on their own. A viewer should be able to enjoy each piece with or without having seen the rest.

The clearest date on the calendar is for Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which is scheduled to reach theatres on 9 July 2027. That gives fans a fixed point, though the wider slate of DC films has not been dated in the same way.

For casual viewers, the takeaway is simple. DC is aiming for a set of central heroes, a handful of supporting figures who could grow, and films that can be watched alone or as part of a bigger story.