Earlier this year, just weeks after finally releasing The Snyder Cut, Warner Bros. announced that they’d binned two of DCEU’s upcoming films—New Gods and The Trench, from Ava DuVernay and James Wan, respectively.
This decision upset quite a few fans, and the reason behind it wasn’t revealed. Now, months later, we might have an idea why WB axed the two films.
While speaking to SiriusXM, DuVernay hinted that the cancellation of New Gods might’ve been influenced by WB’s stance on Zack Snyder’s Justice League. DuVernay explained,
I loved New Gods, which is the project that got axed. The studio decided that they did not want to pursue a certain part of that comic world based on some things that were going on with another film in that world. So before I even was able to kind of complete my script with Tom King, they axed it.
Ava DuVernay
The “certain part” here is probably Darkseid. First announced in 2018, not much was revealed about the film’s plot, but it was going to feature the Justice League supervillain as the main antagonist.
When Snyder Cut dropped on HBO Max, the director had included many elements from the New Gods comics into his version of Justice League, including the Mother Boxes, the Anti-Life Equation… and Darkseid himself. (So I guess WB thought it was a better idea to bury good stories instead of burying the hatchet.)
However, DuVernay added that she was still working on her upcoming DC series, Naomi, for The CW alongside HBO Max’s DMZ adaptation of the comics by the same name published under DC’s Vertigo.
Wan recently also gave some updates on The Trench and said the project was going to be a Black Manta spinoff.
Despite the spinoff’s cancellation, Black Manta will return with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II reprising the role for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
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