DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has confirmed the next DCU character on track to appear in both a DC Studios movie and a TV series. Moving heroes between film and television is a founding promise of the DCU, the rebooted universe Gunn oversees with co-CEO Peter Safran, and the pair have kept it up ever since Creature Commandos premiered in December 2024. They want the same actors playing the same characters across every format, big screen or small.
The character in question is Jaime Reyes, better known as Blue Beetle. Gunn said this week that the Blue Beetle animated series remains in active development, shutting down a report from days earlier that claimed the show stalled at HBO Max. Xolo Maridueña is also set to return as Reyes in next year's Man of Tomorrow, so the update puts Blue Beetle on course to join the growing club of DC Studios characters with both a movie and a TV series to their name.
The confirmation arrived on Threads, where a fan asked for news on the show under Gunn's birthday post. The co-CEO kept his reply short, stating that, "It's still very much in development." He offered nothing further, though the answer was enough to ease fears that the project had been quietly dropped. Neither HBO Max nor DC Studios ever announced a cancellation.
Deadline first reported the series in 2024 as a Warner Bros. Animation production that continues the story of the 2023 Blue Beetle film. Miguel Puga of The Casagrandes signed on as showrunner and director, and Good Trouble writer Cristian Martinez is scripting it. The movie's director Angel Manuel Soto and writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer are attached as executive producers. The show was originally aimed at younger viewers, a category HBO Max pulled back from in recent years, which is where the shelving chatter began.
Word of Maridueña's return came in July, when Deadline reported the Cobra Kai alum will suit up again in Man of Tomorrow. The Superman sequel, which Gunn wrote and is directing, is filming in Atlanta ahead of its July 9, 2027 release, and it sends David Corenswet's Man of Steel and Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor after a shared enemy in the alien intelligence Brainiac, played by Lars Eidinger. Gunn once called Reyes "the first DCU character." The young hero already logged a brief animated appearance in Creature Commandos, which showed Blue Beetle among Earth's fallen heroes in a vision of a doomed future. Once the Blue Beetle cartoon and Man of Tomorrow arrive, Reyes will complete a jump, plenty of DC Studios names already made.
Major DCU Characters Who Have Featured in Both Movies and TV Series
Rick Flag Sr.
Frank Grillo voiced the veteran soldier in Creature Commandos before playing him in live action in Superman. Peacemaker Season 2 then put him at the center of its story, hunting John Cena's Chris Smith over the death of his son.
The vendetta steered him somewhere darker by the season's end, with Flag and ARGUS discovering Salvation and deciding to use it as a prison planet. That arc positions Grillo's soldier as one of the DCU's biggest villains, and he's set to appear again in Man of Tomorrow.
Guy Gardner
Nathan Fillion debuted the bowl-cut Green Lantern in Superman as part of the Justice Gang. He kept the haircut for Peacemaker Season 2 and returns to theaters in Man of Tomorrow.
The comics version debuted back in 1968 and grew into the Green Lantern Corps' resident loudmouth, a hothead whose arrogance usually outruns his talent. Fillion brilliantly played the live-action version exactly that way.
Hawkgirl
Isabela Merced's Kendra Saunders followed the same path as her Justice Gang teammate, debuting in Superman before flying through Peacemaker Season 2. She fights alongside the Kryptonian again in Man of Tomorrow.
Kendra Saunders left a mark in Superman by dropping Boravia's warmongering president to his death, a move colder than anything her teammates did.
Maxwell Lord
Sean Gunn plays the billionaire bankrolling the Justice Gang. After his debut in Superman, Lord turned up in the Peacemaker Season 2 premiere, helping judge Smith's disastrous audition for the team.
The comics depict Lord far less kindly, turning the businessman into a mind-controlling villain who murdered Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. Gunn's take remains friendly for now, though that history gives the DCU an easy heel turn whenever it wants one.
Lex Luthor
Nicholas Hoult's Luthor ended Superman behind bars, and Peacemaker Season 2 checked in on him there, with Flag visiting Belle Reve to request his help in tracking Peacemaker. Hoult reprises the role in Man of Tomorrow.
Peacemaker also revealed the billionaire is serving a 265-year sentence for the chaos he caused in Superman, though prison clearly does little to slow his scheming. Set photos from the sequel already showed Hoult wearing Luthor's green-and-purple warsuit from the comics, a hint that he's ready to wreak havoc again.
Peacemaker
John Cena's Chris Smith headlines Peacemaker, which wrapped its second season last October. On the film side, he popped up in The Suicide Squad, which is a DC Studios film, and appeared in Superman as a TV pundit trashing its title hero.
Season 1 premiered in 2022 under the old regime, and Gunn folded it into DCU canon rather than starting over, making Smith one of the few characters to appear in both continuities without a recast.
Superman
David Corenswet relaunched the character in last summer's Superman and leads Man of Tomorrow next. His television appearances are smaller: an animated Superman died in the same Creature Commandos vision that featured Blue Beetle, and his silhouette appears in the reworked Justice Gang scene in Peacemaker Season 2.
Supergirl
Milly Alcock debuted in the final minutes of Superman before headlining Supergirl this past June. Like her cousin, she showed up in animated form in Creature Commandos and the Justice Gang silhouette scene in Peacemaker, where she can briefly be seen in flight.
Her film adapts Woman of Tomorrow, the acclaimed comic by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, and follows Kara on a revenge quest across the galaxy beside a young alien girl named Ruthye. It also brought Jason Momoa back to DC in the new role of Lobo, his first appearance since the old universe ended.
Clayface
Alan Tudyk voiced the Clayface in Creature Commandos, where he murdered a university expert and took her place, then beat Flag half close to death once the soldier caught on. Tom Rhys Harries takes over as Matt Hagen when Clayface arrives in theaters on October 23, giving the DCU its first horror film.
The film casts Hagen as an actor whose face gets carved up on a crime boss's orders; the tragedy pushes him to partake in an experimental treatment that turns him into a monster.
Emilia Harcourt
Jennifer Holland's no-nonsense agent debuted in The Suicide Squad and evolved into one of the leads of Peacemaker across both seasons.
Harcourt started out as one of Waller's stone-faced office operatives, and the series slowly cracked her open as she took on bad guys and navigated a complicated romance with Smith. By the end of Season 2, she had grown softer and shared a heartwarming kiss with Smith, who had fought for her love across both seasons.
Amanda Waller
Viola Davis portrayed Amanda Waller, the ruthless ARGUS boss in The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and then Creature Commandos, where she assembles the monster squad the series follows. Few figures connect more corners of the franchise than her.
DC Studios announced a Waller series in early 2023 with Davis attached to lead, though updates on that project have grown nearly as scarce as they once were for Blue Beetle.
King Shark
Sylvester Stallone voiced the dim-witted Nanaue in The Suicide Squad, and the Creature Commandos finale revealed the shark-man as one of Waller's new recruits, teeing him up for the animated show's second season.
Creature Commandos already has a second season on the way. Diedrich Bader, who voiced the character in the finale, will reprise the role in Season 2.
Mister Terrific
Edi Gathegi's Michael Holt backed up Corenswet's Man of Steel with floating T-Spheres in Superman before turning up in the reworked Justice Gang scene early in Peacemaker Season 2. He suits up again for Man of Tomorrow.
The character proved a fan favorite in Superman, with viewers singling out his effortless one-man fight scene as a highlight of the whole film. In the comics, Holt ranks as the third-smartest man on Earth, an Olympic-level athlete who took up heroics after losing his wife, which leaves plenty of story for the DCU to mine. A spinoff TV series revolving around the character is reportedly in the works at DC Studios.
Upcoming: John Stewart
Aaron Pierre gets the biggest spotlight of anyone here over the coming weeks. He stars opposite Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan in Lanterns, premiering Sunday, August 16 on HBO, and he then makes the leap to film in Man of Tomorrow. Stewart is being set up as the face of the Green Lantern Corps in the DCU, and Lanterns will reveal how big his influence will be in this continuity.
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.
