Ava DuVernay's New Gods as well as James Wan's Aquaman spinoff The Trench are officially scrapped by Warner Bros. For years, the DCEU has had several franchises up and running while also putting other projects into development. Some have been stuck in development hell while others eventually move forward as either being produced or scrapped. But in some cases, there have been DC titles that have had brief updates every once in a while, hinting that in one way or another, Warner Bros. is still actively working on them.
While the DCEU has progressed forward over the last couple of years, there have been a few films that fans have been wanting updates on for quite a while. One of them is Ava DuVernay's New Gods that would focus on the Fourth World characters such as Darkseid, Big Barda, Mister Miracle, and more. DC Comics writer Tom King was announced to be penning the screenplay with DuVernay as he has written critically acclaimed books like Mister Miracle, making him a good resource. While Aquaman 2 is coming, Wan has also been developing a horror spinoff film from the franchise in the form of The Trench, focusing on the creatures fans met in the first installment.
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But after years of developing these films for the studio, Warner Bros. officially confirmed that New Gods and The Trench are no longer happening as they have been scrapped. This comes right after DuVernay had responded on Twitter about fans who wanted to see Ray Porter's Darkseid in her New Gods film. While she appreciated Porter's tweet to fans about not pestering the director in putting his Darkseid in the movie, DuVernay said that WB would be addressing the project soon. In a joint statement from Warner Bros. and DC, they shared the following via The Hollywood Reporter:
"As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward. We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan, and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future."
While this is the nature of the Hollywood film industry, it's certainly disappointing for both New Gods and The Trench to no longer be happening. In the case of DuVernay's project, it would have allowed a huge variety of Jack Kirby's beloved characters to come to the big screen. With King having co-written the screenplay with her, it'd have been intriguing to see his involvement with characters that he had written for in the comics. While Zack Snyder's Justice League won't be getting any sequels, had Porter gotten to reprise the role of Darkseid in New Gods, it would have allowed the iconic villain to be explored even more.
Oddly enough, the cancelation of The Trench does make some sense to a degree due to Wan soon getting busy with shooting Aquaman 2. While it was an unusual choice for a spinoff film from Jason Momoa's DC franchise, it would have been fascinating to see the DCEU tackle horror which is something they haven't done. It's worth noting that DC and Warner Bros. do state that if those projects ever were revived, DuVernay and Wan would still get to be involved. Perhaps New Gods and/or The Trench might get retooled into HBO Max properties as WB is also looking to bring original DC films to the streaming service.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
