Would you watch a Superman movie by Grant Morrison? We do, but apparently Warner Bros. don't

Think of it as a very particular Elseworld: as Marvel was launching the first Iron Man into theaters, it turns out that Warner Bros. was talking to some of DC’s top comic book talent about potential movie ideas. Sure, in our world it didn’t happen, but somewhere else in the multiverse, there’s a world that got to see a Wonder Woman movie written by none other than Grant Morrison.

Writing in the latest installment of their newsletter Xanaduum, Morrison revealed that their graphic novel series Wonder Woman: Earth One was actually their second attempt at telling a story featuring the iconic DC hero, with the first coming during what they described as “a creatively fruitless, if financially rewarding, time as a consultant at Warner Bros. movies in 2008, alongside Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman.”

It wasn’t just Wonder Woman that Morrison was working on for the studio; they shared that “other pitches included Teen Titans, Doom Patrol, Green Arrow, several versions of an Aquaman story which I really liked, and a few takes on a potential Superman movie,” adding that “some bits and pieces” from the Superman pitches ended up in their 2011-2013 Action Comics run.

“All my Superman pitches had a pre-credits cold open on pulp planet Krypton, and showed silly insignificant daily life in the city of Kandor ten seconds before the moment Brainiac arrives to shrink and bottle it for his collection. A version of this sequence appeared in Action Comics #3,” they revealed. The opening of Action Comics #14 also originally was part of a Superman pitch, they explained.

While that 2008 period didn’t work out too well, it wasn’t the last time Morrison worked on DC’s characters on the big screen; in 2019, it was announced that Morrison and Ezra Miller were writing their own screenplay for what would eventually become The Flash movie released in summer 2023. That screenplay was passed over in favor of one by Christina Hudson, based on a story by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, and Joby Harold, but given that Morrison described it in a 2020 interview as being “ more like Back to the Future, I would say, than a superhero movie,” it sounds like it shared some DNA with the finished version.

If Morrison’s Superman and Wonder Woman pitches ended up working elements into comic books, the obvious question is: how can we convince Morrison and DC to bring the other pitches into comic book existence?

Okay, so these DC movies didn't happen, but here's what is definitely coming up for DC in terms of movies and TV shows.