James Gunn’s DC Studios turned Annecy 2026 into the stage for eight massive movie and TV announcements. Held in France, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival is the largest animation event in the world, and this year marked a monumental return for the studio as they unveiled the future of their animated universe. The studio joined Warner Bros. Animation for a presentation titled "World’s Finest Animation: DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation Showcase." DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran hosted the panel at the festival’s Bonlieu theater on Thursday, June 25, alongside Warner Bros. Animation president Sam Register and executive vice president Peter Girardi.
The studios greenlit three brand-new series at the event: an adaptation of Absolute Batman, an intriguing take on the Joker, and an untitled kids' show starring Krypto. They also debuted footage and fresh details for one of DC Studios' most important animated projects, which is canon in the DCU. Batman got a heavy spotlight at the event, and Absolute Batman was not the only Dark Knight-related project revealed. Other iconic DC characters fans grew up watching will also feature in upcoming projects. More importantly, the DCU's "big bad" beyond Brainiac was also revealed at the event.
DC Greenlights Three New Exciting Animated TV Shows
One of the most notable shows greenlit at the event was Joker: Laugh Riot, DC Studios' first original anime production. Warner Bros. Animation will produce the series with Japanese company Sola Entertainment, its partner on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and Yasuhiro Aoki, the award-winning director of the anime film ChaO, will helm the show. Veteran DC animation producer Jim Krieg executive produces.
The premise flips Gotham’s oldest rivalry upside down. The official synopsis confirms the story begins with the death of the Dark Knight and follows a villain who slowly realizes that "without Batman, he doesn’t know who he is."
"When Batman is murdered, the Joker launches a ruthless crusade through Gotham’s underworld to find the killer who took away his greatest adversary. But as his violent quest for answers pushes him closer towards vigilante than villain, Joker is forced to confront the truth that without Batman, he doesn’t know who he is."
The Joker series sounds impressive, but unsurprisingly Absolute Batman drew the loudest cheers of the panel. Writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta launched the comic in 2024 as the flagship of DC’s Absolute line, reimagining Bruce Wayne as a working-class kid from Crime Alley who becomes Batman without the Wayne fortune. The book has sold more than six million copies, its first issue is on an 11th printing, and every Absolute title ranked among 2025’s ten best-selling comics. DC even did an Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman crossover. Snyder will run the animated series himself as showrunner and executive producer, with Dragotta on board as a producer.
Register confirmed the adaptation "is a full CG show" that promises "a whole different tone and a whole different take again on Batman." Attendees also saw early previs footage from Stellar Creative Labs, which put the hulking hero in front of a burning cityscape. Full CG is a daring choice for this comic in particular. Dragotta draws his Batman with thick lines and brutal shapes, a silhouette closer to a monster than a man, so translating that hand-drawn design into three dimensions will give the show an equally intriguing visual identity.
The final greenlight went to none other than Superman’s dog. C.H. Greenblatt, the creator of Chowder, Harvey Beaks, and Jellystone!, who started his career on SpongeBob SquarePants, will executive produce an untitled kids’ series starring Krypto. Safran told the crowd, "Krypto is really one of my favorite characters in the DC canon and we are thrilled he is finally getting his own show," adding that the series is funny and "full of heart and because it’s Krypto, thoroughly chaotic."
The official synopsis makes clear this pup is anything but a good boy, pitching him as "a ball of destructive, lovable energy." This comes not long after Krypto completed his animated series of shorts, Krypto Saves the Day.
DC Studios has not confirmed whether the new series takes place inside the DCU, but it is likely not to. The show's concept art revealed a goofy, wide-eyed design instead of a copy of the photorealistic dog from live action. However, the badly behaved personality comes straight out of Superman and Supergirl, where Krypto ignores commands and causes chaos in every scene he enters.
Darkseid and Bane Headline DC’s Adult Animation Projects
Mister Miracle delivered the panel’s defining moment. Tom King, who wrote the acclaimed 2017 comic with artist Mitch Gerads, appeared at Annecy a year after the series’ original announcement and called the show a "love letter to Jack Kirby." The story follows Scott Free, the greatest escape artist alive, and his warrior wife Big Barda as war erupts between New Genesis and Apokolips, with Scott’s cruel adoptive father Darkseid closing in on the reality-warping Anti-Life Equation. Titmouse is handling the animation, and Safran confirmed on stage that the series is set in the DCU, backing up what co-CEO James Gunn first stated in January.
A new sizzle reel opened with Scott and Barda in conversation, then erupted into a Parademon assault, all scored by Frightened Rabbit’s song Death Dreams. The final seconds mattered most. The comic’s famous "Darkseid is" panel glitched across the screen before a comic-accurate Darkseid appeared on his throne, marking the first real look at the tyrant of Apokolips in this franchise.
King said the still-unannounced voice cast will play these characters going forward in the DCU, so the franchise already has its official Darkseid even if nobody knows the actor’s name yet. King described the series as a story "about what happens after trauma... recovering from trauma... about living again... about how you get out of that, and it’s the biggest cliché and the one that works... which is love."
The Batman: Knightfall trilogy gave the festival its only finished product. Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall held its world premiere at Annecy on June 23, playing to loud applause ahead of a release later this year, with two more films to follow. Jeff Wamester directs from a script by Jeremy Adams, and Studio Mir, the studio behind X-Men '97 and The Legend of Korra, provides the animation. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds lead Anson Mount voices Bruce Wayne, Halo star Pablo Schreiber plays Jean-Paul Valley, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Michael Mando takes on Bane.
Speaking of Bane, we've barely had a very comic-accurate version of the character who happens to be smarter than usually portrayed. Batman & Robin reduced him to a grunting henchman, The Dark Knight Rises reinvented him as a masked revolutionary, and the Harley Quinn series plays him for laughs. Supervising producer Rick Morales, who called the Knightfall comics a dream project, promised "a comic-accurate version of him:"
"We get to do Bane in a way that he’s never been done before. A comic-accurate version of him. He’s not just a big brute like he’s sometimes portrayed. He’s methodical, he thinks through things, he’s got a plan."
This points to the methodical strategist of the original '90s comic event the trilogy is adapting. The first film follows Bane as he frees Batman’s entire rogues gallery from Arkham Asylum, stretching an exhausted hero toward his mental and physical breaking point. Morales also wants the trilogy to stay true to Kelley Jones’ original covers and designs, which defined the look of the comic event.
DC Studios Aims For Younger Audiences With Starfire, My Adventures with Green Lantern and DC Super Powers
For the younger section of the DC crowd, My Adventures with Green Lantern was showcased at the event. The My Adventures with Superman spin-off stars Moana actress Auli'i Cravalho as Jessica Cruz, a shy teenager who debuted in the parent show’s third season in June. Concept art showcased at the event showed Jessica in a beautiful suit with her allies around her, as well as the Red and Yellow Lantern villains she will face. In a clip shown at the panel, Jessica sang the Green Lantern oath, rearranged into a full song by Cravalho, while going through a glittering transformation sequence.
Showrunner Jake Wyatt said the team chose Jessica because she "struggles the most with her own personal fear and anxiety" and offers the most room to grow, since "to have a magical girl, you need to have a really normal girl." Kilowog, the Corps’ gruff drill instructor, will mentor her at a Green Lantern temple, and Wyatt teased villains designed as "hot evil people" strange enough to scare Jessica and her classmates.
Another interesting detail is that Jessica attends Hal Jordan Memorial High School, a name that all but confirms Earth’s most famous Green Lantern is dead in this universe. The panel shared nothing about who Hal was in this world or how he died, leaving fans to theorize until the series premieres.
The supporting cast pulls deep from the comics' long Lantern history. Kyle Rayner, who inherited the ring on the page after Hal’s fall, appears as the school’s art club president and star baseball player. Alex DeWitt, infamously killed off early in Kyle’s comic run, becomes the seemingly perfect student Jessica measures herself against, and Wyatt confirmed she gets a far bigger role than her comic fate ever allowed. Jessica herself made history as the first human woman in the Green Lantern Corps, and with names like Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and Simon Baz still on the table, the show has a deep bench of ring-bearers left to explore.
Starfire is another exciting show revealed at the panel. Hynden Walch will voice Princess Koriand’r again, a role she has held since the 2003 Teen Titans series and continued through Teen Titans Go! Executive producer Josie Campbell confirmed the casting on stage, and despite the familiar voice, the series exists in its own continuity with no connection to any earlier Teen Titans project.
The story follows Kori as she flees Tamaran aboard an ancient ship called the Starblaze and explores the Vega Galaxy with a crew of young alien girls, space biker Crush, plant-loving Fern, and Princess Amethyst of Gemworld. Crush is Lobo’s teenage daughter, and the Main Man himself will appear alongside the hawk-winged Thanagarians, with the journey eventually detouring through Gotham City. Footage screened at the panel showed Kori trading blows with her villainous sister Blackfire, and even the theme song doubles as a callback, since J-pop duo Puffy AmiYumi, the act behind the 2003 Teen Titans theme, will perform the new one.
DC Super Powers rounds out the younger slate as a preschool series set at the Alliance School for Heroes. New students Lightning, Flash, Plastic Man, Aquagirl, Green Lantern, and Terra sharpen their powers under Principal Martian Manhunter in hopes of graduating into the next generation of Earth’s defenders. Executive producer Matt Beans described the show as being about "finding the hero inside yourself," with each of the kids bringing their own fears and insecurities to the academy. A clip screened at Annecy showed the class running training drills before squaring off against giant robotic tigers, and the roster notably skips DC’s A-list names in favor of young heroes discovering their powers for the first time.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
