Popverse's top stories

• Top Shonen Jump editor behind DanDaDan, Chainsaw Man & SpyXFamily has left his staff position to start his own manga company
• MEMBERS ONLY: Popverse Playlist: The 3 things you need to check out in pop culture April 25 through May 1
• How Gwen Stacy's death set-up the creation of the Punisher, according to the writer who did both for Marvel Comics

Bad news for fans of Midnighter and Apollo, and the rest of early 2000s comic book phenomenon The Authority: DC Studios has paused development on the film adaptation of The Authority, according to none other than co-chair James Gunn. 

Three years after it was announced as part of the initial development slate for James Gunn and Peter Safran's emergent DC Universe, DC Studios has hit officially hit pause on the project. On Threads, James Gunn responded to a fan's post inquiring about where The Authority movie was in the development process, and corrected another fan's comment that he was writing and directing the movie. 

"I would have never had time to [write and direct The Authority] and although I know this is a popular theory online I never had an intention of writing or directing The Authority. The script wasn't quite there but more importantly it didn't work in terms of the larger DCU both in terms of the story and practical concerns. Maybe some day. Not soon," wrote Gunn on Threads. 

This isn't the first time Gunn (and his co-chair, Peter Safran) have discussed the problems in developing a feature based on the 1999 comic created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch; in February 2025, the two revealed to Variety that development on the project was slow, with Safran saying that "some story elements perhaps that are in [2025's] Superman and some of the other films that we’ve fast tracked step a little bit on The Authority," while Gunn admitted that screenplay development "had a harder time coming along" than other DC projects. 

While the DCU remains robbed of Midnighter, Apollo, or Jenny Sparks, one member of the Authority has already been introduced to the on-screen DC Universe: the Engineer, who was portrayed by María Gabriela de Faría in 2025's Superman movie. 

Luckily, the Booster Gold and the Wonder Woman-related Paradise Lost shows are both in development, confirmed Gunn, with the latter project - a Game of Thrones-style fantasy about the history of the Amazon home of Paradise Island - being described as being in "extreme development." So... should we expect some Wonder Woman news before too long, perhaps?

I'm still holding out hope that Midnighter and Apollo will pop up somewhere in the DC Cinematic Universe. 

Enjoy our guides to how to watch the recent DCEU, the Arrowverse, and James Gunn's upcoming DCU. Oh, and don't forget our guide to what's coming up for DC projects on the big and small screens.