TV
“Creature Commandos” – James Gunn Writing Animated DC Series for HBO Max
In addition to a brand new Swamp Thing movie, the just-announced upcoming slate from DC – now that James Gunn and Peter Safran are in charge – also includes “Creature Commandos,” an animated series for HBO Max that should be of interest to horror fans.
Gunn is writing every episode of “Creature Commandos,” which is particularly exciting. In fact, the show is already in production, so it should be coming our way very soon.
Variety details, “The Creature Commando characters were first launched in 1980. The premise features Frankenstein’s monster teaming up with a werewolf, a vampire and a gorgon to fight Nazis in World War II. It doesn’t appear that Gunn’s version takes quite the same approach — Weasel, one of the characters from Gunn’s 2021 film “The Suicide Squad,” is one of the Commandos, along with Rick Flag’s father, Rick Flag Sr.”
“Gunn said that the actors cast to voice the characters on the show will also play the roles in live action later on in the DCU,” Variety’s report on all of today’s big DC news continues.
Gunn further explains, “Animation will lead into live action and back into animation. It’s a way to tell stories that are gigantic and huge without spending $50M an episode.”
The original team known as the “Creature Commandos” was introduced in Weird War Tales #93 (November 1980), and it was created by J. M. DeMatteis and Pat Broderick.
Blade Runner is headed to the small screen in Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099, set 50 years after Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, in a world where replicants have emerged on top after an uprising.
Humans are no longer in power.
At the forefront of the new series are stars Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), and EW has shared the first images of their characters.
Yeoh stars as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen, facing the final days of her life. It’s a twist on the Roy Batty story from the first film; here, that story will be told from the replicant’s perspective.
Opposite her is Schafer as Olwen’s partner, Cora, a human fugitive pretending to be a replicant. Olwen and Cora will be working together to investigate missing rogue replicants.
Blade Runner 2099 comes from Alcon Entertainment, Scott Free, and Amazon Studios. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) is writing, showrunning, and executive producing.
Jonathan van Tulleken (“Shōgun”) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Luisa tells EW that Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi noir acts as the series’ North Star, but it’ll forge its own identity: “We leaned into sunshine noir. You’re still very much in the Blade Runner world, but the show is about a birth. It’s about a birth of a city. It’s about a birth of a replicant era. These characters are discovering who they really are. And so the climate is hot, it’s sticky, it’s sunny. We’re on the coast a lot. We’re in Santa Monica a lot. So it’s like you’re seeing Ridley’s texture, but you’re seeing it in the sunshine noir filter.”
The showrunner adds, “The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant?“
Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Katelyn Rose Downey (The Nun II), and Daniel Rigby (Renegade Nell) also star in the upcoming series. Johnny Harris (A Gentleman in Moscow), Amy Lennox (Only Child), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), and Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon) join as recurring guest stars.
Blade Runner 2099 is expected to premiere later this year, so stay tuned.
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
Credit: Clay Enos/Prime Video
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