There are whispers of a new animated superhero project at WB, the latest addition to James Gunn’s growing DC universe (the JGDCU). It’s becoming apparent that some of these projects will wander off the beaten path, and this latest one treks into some very uncharted territory.
Reports say Gunn is looking into producing a Jurassic League movie. The Jurassic League is a simple concept — it’s the Justice League, but as dinosaurs. In fact, everyone’s a dinosaur: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Condiment King, you name it. Gunn has allegedly brought on Brian Lynch, who wrote the scripts for The Secret Life Of Pets and the first Minions movie, to figure out what happens here.
If you’ve never heard of the Jurassic League, don’t blame yourself — they’re somewhat new. The book that introduced them was only published in 2022. It was a six-issue miniseries that recast everybody in the DCU as giant reptiles. They had to all team up to save prehistoric Earth from Darkseid (I don’t have a photo but I’m guessing he was a dinosaur too).
The book was written by Daniel Warren Johnson (Wonder Woman: Dead Earth, Beta Ray Bill) and illustrated by Juan Gedeon (Venom). They both cited “rad animal” 90s cartoons as inspiration for the tone of the thing. “Jurassic League is all I want to draw: dinos and epic fights,” Gedeon said. “My own version of a 90s cartoon or video game. Expect a story about survival, unity and hope where the strong protect the weak in a world where danger lurks in every corner.” With the Minions writer scripting, the movie version will likely be even sillier.
Despite the repeated statement that everything in Gunn’s DCU will be connected, his animated projects so far seem to be less so: they’re using the “Elseworlds” label to explain them as an alternate continuity. The first cartoon Gunn announced was Creature Commandos, a TV series believed to be hitting Max late this year.
Why Jurassic League? Perhaps they’re so obsessed with the fact that they could, they never stopped to consider whether or not they even should. If we hear anything more about this alleged project, we’ll pass on the word.
