Challengers Director Reportedly in Talks for a DCU Project

James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe could be welcoming a surprising new director. On Tuesday, a report from Jeff Sneider revealed that Luca Guadagnino, who recently directed the hit drama “Challengers,” is in talks to direct a project under DC Studios’ new DCU.

The report clarified that while Guadagnino is not officially attached to any particular project, there is “mutual interest” between him and DC Studios. He is reportedly high on the list of potential directors Gunn and Safran have been meeting with.

At this point, it remains unclear if Guadagnino, known for his work on “Call Me By Your Name” and the upcoming “Queer,” would direct a movie or a television series within the DCU. It is also unknown whether the project in question is a new concept or one of the ten titles Gunn and Safran announced earlier in 2023.

Currently, the only confirmed film in the DCU without an attached director is “The Authority.” James Gunn is set to direct 2025’s “Superman,” Craig Gillespie is directing 2026’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” James Mangold is attached to “Swamp Thing,” and Andy Muschietti is directing “The Brave and the Bold.”

The initial DC Studios slate includes 2025’s “Superman,” 2026’s “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow,” and undated movies like “The Brave and the Bold,” “Swamp Thing,” and “The Authority.” HBO Max will also see television shows such as “Waller,” “Booster Gold,” “Lanterns,” “Paradise Lost,” and an animated “Creature Commandos” series.

Reports suggest that a live-action “Teen Titans” movie and an animated “Jurassic League” movie are also in the works at DC Studios, although these projects have not yet been publicly confirmed.

“A lot of people think it’s going to be Marvel 2.0, and definitely I learned a lot of stuff at Marvel,” Gunn explained in 2023. “We are telling a big, huge, central story that is like Marvel, except for, I think that we’re a lot more planned out than Marvel from the beginning because we’ve gotten a group of writers together to work that story out completely. But we’re also creating a universe that is like ‘Star Wars,’ where there’s different times, different places, different things, or ‘Game of Thrones,’ where characters are a little bit more morally complex.”