Since James Gunn and Peter Safran took over the newly created DC Studios in November 2022, the renewal side of the ledger has moved at a trickle, with the co-CEOs being seemingly reluctant to renew DC fans' favourite series for a second season. Only a handful of their own ordered titles have reached the screen so far, and fewer still have earned a follow-up.
While Creature Commandos was the first to land a second season in the Gunn era, another DC title has just been cleared to join its ranks. DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation have confirmed that Krypto Saves the Day!, the kid-friendly series of animated shorts starring Superman's caped dog, is coming back for a second season. The announcement came from DC Studios via Entertainment Weekly, with producers revealing that the new season is already in active production as the first season wraps.
The fourth and final Season 1 short debuted on the DC Kids YouTube channel and HBO Max on April 18, featuring a cameo from Milly Alcock's Kara Zor-El ahead of her summer theatrical debut, which will feature many Kryptonians. Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe, said the studio loved the fan response and wanted to keep building with DC.
Although there haven’t been many in the James Gunn era, there's a decent chance a couple of them received another season, especially those with fan-favorite characters.
5 DC Shows From James Gunn That May Get Another Season
Peacemaker
Peacemaker is arguably the best series released in the James Gunn era. John Cena's second run premiered on HBO Max in August last year and ran through October, with Gunn writing every episode and directing three. It was the first live-action DCU show released under DC Studios proper, since Season 1 from 2022 was made under the defunct DCEU and only retroactively folded into the new continuity. Critics were loud in their praise, and the season finale left Chris Smith stranded on the metahuman prison world of Salvation.
Despite the cliffhanger, Gunn has said that there are no current plans for a third season, framing the future of Peacemaker and the 11th Street Kids as something that will play out across other DCU projects. Salvation itself is confirmed to factor into Man of Tomorrow, the Superman sequel due in July 2027, and Checkmate, the new organization introduced in the finale, was described by Gunn as a group that will return in some form. Taking all this into consideration, chances of Season 3 happening look slim at the moment.
Lanterns
On the other hand, Lanterns, scheduled to arrive on HBO Max this August with Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre as John Stewart, has a decent chance of securing another season. The first trailer arrived in March, giving fans a proper look at the grounded, detective-flavored take Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King are pursuing.
With the series yet to air, a renewal conversation is still hypothetical, but showrunner Mundy has said publicly that he'd like the show to run for multiple seasons, and Gunn has talked about Lanterns being connected to the wider DCU story. If it is well-received by DC fans, there's no reason to believe Gunn won't give another season a shot.
Mister Miracle
On the animation side, Mister Miracle is in a more delicate spot. Gunn has confirmed that the adult animated series, based on the Tom King and Mitch Gerads 12-issue comic run, is officially DCU canon, with King serving as showrunner and Darkseid, Apokolips, and the New Gods entering the franchise through it. Production is underway, and casting has begun, but no premiere window has been set. A Season 2 discussion is a long way off for a show that hasn't finished its first, and the precedent from Creature Commandos, which took roughly two years from production to release, is enough reason to believe patience is the only option.
Untitled Jimmy Olsen Series
The Jimmy Olsen spinoff series will see Skyler Gisondo returning from Superman to lead a fictional true-crime docuseries from American Vandal creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, with Gorilla Grodd as the first-season target. The series is still in the writing stage with no production start, meaning a 2027 debut at the earliest. Another season happening will likely depend on how well received it is and if the story is built to run for multiple seasons.
The Penguin
The Penguin, a story about Colin Farrell's award-winning Oz Cobb, lives in Matt Reeves' separate Elseworlds corner alongside The Batman, and while HBO boss Casey Bloys has said a second season remains something "everybody involved would like to figure out," it hasn't been ordered. The Penguin was a huge hit, and even non-comic book fans thoroughly enjoyed it.
A second season would do amazing numbers on HBO Max, and wherever there's profit, streaming services are interested. It might take some time for a second season to happen, but it’s hard to imagine DC not giving this series another shot in the future.
Season 1 of Krypto Saves the Day! debuted last year, and the shorts are available on the DC Kids YouTube channel and HBO Max, with the first episode also bundled into the home release of Superman. Gunn has been clear from the start that these shorts are outside the DCU's main canon, calling them a light, goofy playground for families rather than connective tissue for the franchise.
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.
