James Gunn Considers The Authority One Of His 'Real Passion Projects' In The DCU

James Gunn, ever the fan of obscure comic properties, announced "The Authority" as one of the new projects that the DCU is rolling out in the new slate Gunn and Peter Safran announced for their DC Universe reboot on Twitter. The film is to be part of the first chapter of the new DCU called "Gods and Monsters." 

According to the DC website, "The Authority" comes from WildStorm, a comic book company founded in 1992 that focused on superhero teams rather than individuals. The name "WildStorm" comes from combining two of their earliest titles, "WildC.A.T.s" and "Stormwatch," the latter of which was a superhero team that worked with the government to become the primary defense force for Earth. Upon the disbanding of Stormwatch, a new group emerged called The Authority. Unlike Stormwatch, The Authority didn't work with Earth's governments; they became the government, appointing themselves the true arbiters of right and wrong.

WildStorm was later acquired by DC Comics. According to that DC article, WildStorm continued to be published independently in a separate universe that occasionally crossed over with the characters in DC. That was until 2011, when the New 52 brought some of WildStorm characters into the main DC universe. According to ComicBook.com, Warren Ellis revived the WildStorm universe in 2017 starting with "The Wild Storm" #1. With "The Authority" being part of the DCU, it appears it will not be seperate from a majority if DC stories; however, it's still up in the air what Gunn's role will be in this film.

In the press conference held Monday, James Gunn referred to "The Authority" as a passion project of his and a different kind of superhero story (via SlashFilm). Gunn went on to describe the superhero team in detail. 

"They are basically good-intentioned," Gunn said, "but they think that the world is completely broken and the only way to fix it is to take things into their own hands." He said specifically these characters exist in a moral gray area, meaning the movie will likely explore the morality of this team.

Gunn also said he wrote the outline for the film and worked directly with the writers on the project, but he's not sure how best to focus his energy on the slate going forward. He talked about possibly focusing on the new "Superman: Legacy" movie or spreading his time evenly amongst all of the projects (via Collider). According to Gunn, this is the "number one unknown thing about [the slate of films]," leaving a lot of room for speculation as to what Gunn will do on these projects, particularly on "The Authority."