Zach Cregger might just be the wild card the DCU needs. The filmmaker who exploded onto the scene with Barbarian in 2022 has been quietly sitting on a Gotham-set script he once called “the best thing I’ve ever written.” At the time, Cregger hadn’t even spoken to anyone at Warner Bros. or DC. “Nobody from Warner Bros. or DC. I have not talked to anybody about it. I hope to one day,” he told ComicBook back then. Now in 2025, and industry insiders like Daniel Richtman claim Cregger is finally preparing to pitch the story to James Gunn’s DC Studios. But don’t expect a full-on Joker and Harley Quinn love fest. Another reliable scooper, Apocalyptic Horseman, clarified, “Just to be clear, there is no Joker & Harley movie in development… The script doesn’t even star Joker and Harley… it’s centered on a henchman.”
After years of Joker fatigue, a story told from the perspective of a low-level Gotham criminal could be exactly the shake-up DC’s most overexposed villain needs. Why? Because we’ve had every possible Joker already. Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning take in Joker (2019). Jared Leto’s tattooed gangster in Suicide Squad (2016), a performance chopped to pieces, sparking endless cries for the mythical Ayer Cut. Leto even returned in Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021), albeit in a much weirder, post-apocalyptic version. Then there’s Barry Keoghan’s scarred, barely-there cameo in The Batman (2022). And let’s not even talk about Joker: Folie à Deux tanking at the box office last year.
So maybe Gunn should give Zach Cregger a shot in the DCU. The filmmaker has been on a winning streak. His upcoming horror epic Weapons, starring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, hits theaters on August 8, 2025, and he’s already locked to write and direct Sony’s Resident Evil reboot, aiming for a 2026 release. He’s busy, sure, but if Gunn calls, Cregger won’t hesitate. “If I got the call, I would drop everything and go make that movie in a heartbeat,” he said in a recent Discussing Film interview. “It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written. I love it, and I’m dying to make it. I have not talked to James Gunn in my whole life. I don’t know him but I would certainly love to meet him and have the conversation. Who knows man?”
Cregger also spoke about the script on Bloody Disgusting’s The Boo Crew Podcast, and revealed that he’s working on a script that’s “set in the DC Universe,” which he describes as being a “Batman-adjacent thing.” He teased, “I wrote it and I’m utterly obsessed with it. So one day… I want to make that.”
The beauty of the current DC setup is that Gunn and Peter Safran’s Elseworlds banner allows for exactly this kind of thing. Matt Reeves is already doing his own thing with The Batman – Part II, and Mike Flanagan’s R-rated Clayface film only exists because Gunn said yes to a great script. Cregger’s Gotham story wouldn’t even need to fit the larger DCU.
Would you want to see Zach Cregger’s version of Gotham in the DCU, one where the Joker is lurking in the shadows while a henchman takes center stage? Or has the Clown Prince of Crime been milked dry? Personally, I’m curious. Barbarian proved Cregger can craft tension like few others, and if Weapons lands the way people expect, Gunn might not just take the meeting. He might fast-track this thing.
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