"DCU's The Authority Film Delayed, Gunn Cites Challenges with The Boys' Influence"

It sounds like DCU movie The Authority is facing some challenges after DC Studios co-chief James Gunn admitted it had been put on the “back burner.” Announced as part of Gunn and Peter Safran’s ambitious Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters DC Universe reboot two years ago, The Authority promised to bring the infamously brutal superhero team from the WildStorm Universe to the big screen. Initially described by Gunn as a "big movie," it appears the project has encountered significant hurdles.

During a DC Studios presentation attended by IGN, Gunn revealed that The Authority has been the “hardest” of the announced Chapter 1 projects. He cited Amazon’s smash hit adaptation of The Boys as one of the contributing factors to the project's difficulties. Gunn explained, “Honestly, Authority's been the one that's been the hardest, 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 further elaborated on the challenges, mentioning the need to integrate characters already filmed and loved by audiences. “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. So I will admittedly say it's a little bit more on the back burner right now.”

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One character from The Authority, electronics prodigy The Engineer / Angela Spica, is set to appear in the DCU kickstarter Superman. The Engineer is arguably the most powerful member of the group, with abilities including self-duplication, technopathy, genius-level intellect, and radio-induced telepathy. For more information on the team, check out IGN's article, Who Are the Authority: The WildStorm DCU Characters Explained.

The Authority isn’t the only Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters project facing challenges. Gunn mentioned that Waller, a spinoff of his own HBO Max hit series Peacemaker, “has had a couple of setbacks, frankly.” However, the HBO Max series Booster Gold “is going pretty strong,” and Paradise Lost is "totally, still important and we're working heavily on it," Gunn said. "It seems to be going pretty well." Peter Safran confirmed, "The pilot's being written right now."

Regarding Swamp Thing, Safran stated that DC Studios is willing to wait for director James Mangold, who is currently working on another project, A Complete Unknown. Safran expressed, "Our writer-director went off to make another little movie, A Complete Unknown, and we hope that he'll come back to Swamp Thing when he's ready, because again, that was one of those ones that we love him as a filmmaker, so we're happy to wait for him." Gunn added that Swamp Thing "is not integral to the larger story that we're telling. Right. Yeah, it was always outside of that. I mean, it was because James came to us with it, frankly."