DC Comics is entering a new age, filled with new projects and buzzing news for fans. At the end of 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that director James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) and producer Peter Safran (Shazam!, Aquaman) were brought into DC Studios to begin new projects with the company. Safran and Gunn shared that they will begin new canon DC Universe with the new Superman movie that will be released in 2025. The CW, for more than a decade, alongside Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon, Life As We Know It, Everwood), was able to bring more projects in the past DC Universe, with beloved series like Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Superman & Lois and Batwoman. These series, all together, formed the franchise that fans know as the Arrowverse. Comicbook.com reports, in an exclusive interview with Berlanti, that the producer has explained what the future of DC Studios will be from now on.
“I kind of feel like I served my time doing [the Arrowverse projects]. It was a real special moment in my life creatively,” Berlanti explained, via Comicbook.com. “I don’t know that I would ever be able to recreate that experience again. The people I got to do it with and the actors that I got to work with that I’m still so close with, it was a really special time.”
The Arrowverse was created throughout 11 years of Berlanti’s career with the network The CW, according to Comicbook.com. Alongside Andrew Kreisberg (Justice League Action, Warehouse 13, The Vampire Diaries) and Marc Guggenheim (Carnival Row, Wizards, Vixen), Berlanti wrote, produced and created the TV show named Arrow first, based on the Green Arrow comics back in 2012. After the series’ first season was huge success, it was renewed for another seven years. Furthermore, in the second season, the character of Barry Allen (The Flash) was introduced in hopes of a future spinoff.
According to Comicbook.com, that spinoff did arrive because six months after the Arrow guest episode aired, The CW decided to pick up a previous pilot project for The Flash and turn it into a full series. After the release of The Flash and its stellar reviews from critics and fans alike, the Arrowverse was created, with multiple spinoffs throughout the years mentioned beforehand.
“I want them to succeed in all the ways that we were able to,” Berlanti shared, speaking about the future of the DC Universe via Comicbook.com. “I’d do anything to help anybody, but I have to say for us, that was a real Camelot moment of everything.”
According to Comicbook.com, Berlanti does not have any ties to DC Studious, so the success of the Arrowverse paved the way for many other DC Projects, just like Gunn’s Superman, who will see the debut of comic characters Mr. Terrific and Hawkgirl on the big screen. Both characters have previously been seen in one or more Arrowverse programs.
“For 10 years, we got to use and work with all these characters,” Berlanti concluded via Comicbook.com. “Our number one credo was we want to put these characters back on the shelf more valuable than when we took them off, so that people would be interested in all of their stories.”
Fly Me to the Moon, Berlanti’s newest project, features Channing Tatum (She’s The Man, 21 Jump Street, Foxcatcher) and Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers, Black Widow, He’s Just Not That Into You). This movie will focus on the moon-landing conspiracy and will be released in theaters on July 12.