James Gunn hasn’t even rolled cameras on his DCU Batman yet, and the stress headache has already started. Matt Reeves has his sequel locked and ready to shoot in April. That Batman has a lane, a tone, and a fanbase that knows exactly what it signed up for. Gunn looked at that situation and still said, cool, let’s launch another Caped Crusader on the side.
That movie, The Brave and the Bold, has been floating around since Gunn hired Andy Muschietti a few years back. Gunn made that call before anyone saw The Flash. Then The Flash arrived, critics shrugged, audiences hated it, and Warner Bros. reportedly watched more than $150 million vanish. Nobody planned that outcome, but it now sits in the room during every DC meeting, arms crossed.
Now comes the part that made the internet reach for the panic button.
After months of secrecy, The InSneider dropped the name of the writer Gunn hoped to keep quiet. Christina Hodson. Yes, that Christina Hodson. The Flash. Birds of Prey. The Batgirl movie that never escaped the vault. She was part of Gunn’s early DCU brain trust, which explains the hire. It doesn’t explain the reactions.
Gunn reportedly wanted to protect Hodson from the noise that follows a Batman script like a shadow. That plan lasted until it didn’t. Fan response turned loud fast, and you can see why. Batman isn’t just another assignment. You mess it up, and people get angry.
The real challenge isn’t Hodson’s résumé or Muschietti’s last box office result. It’s the math. Two Batmen. Running at the same time. One grounded and brooding. One expected to introduce a new DCU, a Bat-Family, and a different tone altogether. If Reeves’ Bruce Wayne feels mid-30s and emotionally wrecked, Gunn’s version almost has to skew older, maybe early 40s, deep into fatherhood and consequences.
Gunn has said he’s found “a way in”. That promises something that doesn’t replay alleyway trauma or gadgets-as-personality.
Hodson is busy, for what it’s worth. She’s finishing an untitled firefighter movie with Ron Howard and Glen Powell and tackling Fast X: Part 2, which might still change shape. Somewhere between those deadlines, she’s helping Gunn attempt the riskiest reboot in franchise history. Reinventing Batman again. In a world that already has too many Bat-Signals in the sky.
