The bar was set skyscraper-high for James Gunn‘s 10-year plan for the DC Universe, given the fierce competition from what is still the most cohesive super-hero multiverse out there, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As exciting as the long list of announcements the writer-director made on Tuesday is, there is one aspect which might just catapult the Warner Bros. franchise to the front of the race and set it apart from its adversary.
Gunn plans on completely integrating animation and live-action by having actors voice their characters in whatever animated series they might feature, contributing to one overarching plot. The possibilities are endless when you pair live-action with animation, allowing for the wildest of ideas to come to fruition within the much freer, and cheaper, creative space of animated content.
“Something we’re gonna do that’s a little bit different at DC is that we’re gonna have characters move into animation, out of animation, usually having the same actor play their voice as who plays them in live-action,” Gunn told DC-heads in a video posted to his Twitter.
This idea definitely sets the rebranded DCU apart from the MCU right off the bat. Animation is largely unexplored in the MCU, with only What If…? contributing to that landscape within the franchise so far, in ways that are safe and largely uncompromising. The show creates hypothetical scenarios that don’t really affect the mainstream continuity of the larger live-action universe, nor does it use actors from the beloved movies to voice their respective characters.
There were a couple of opportunities for Marvel to connect live-action and animation in the past, which were totally wasted by Kevin Feige and Co. First, there was Sony Pictures’ Spider-Verse series, in which different iterations of Spidey come together across the multiverse, leaving fans hoping the MCU’s Peter Parker could make an appearance, voiced by Tom Holland himself. Of course, that never happened.
The other chance to extend live-action towards the world of animated fiction in the MCU came with Spider-Man: Freshman Year, announced on Disney Plus Day in 2021. The plot which was initially teased as a look into MCU Peter’s life prior to his introduction in Captain America: Civil War has since been altered into a kind of alternate universe where Norman Osborn shows up at his doorstep instead of Tony Stark. Tom Holland was instantly ruled out as the voice of the Peter Parker featured in the series, to the disappointment of many.
There is still hope, however, that the MCU won’t completely be missing the mark on this compelling storytelling device, because rumors have been flying for months now that Tom Holland will be voicing a variant of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, the sequel to the Academy Award winning 2018 film. The filmmakers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, have neither confirmed nor denied the actor’s involvement, which in the MCU is usually a good sign.
With Gunn now making his very promising ideas known to the competition, we sure hope the rumors are true and that the MCU will finally elevate animation within its ranks, making it a proper piece of its puzzle, which now spans 30 films and eight television shows.
