James Gunn's Superman Movie Will Debut DC's Brutal Superhero Team The Authority

Even as a superhero malaise seems to be settling over Hollywood, James Gunn is looking to revive the genre with a fascinating slate of new films from DC Entertainment. Few of those projects are as hotly-anticipated as his own "Superman: Legacy," which seeks to put a fresh spin on the well-trod Man of Steel mythos. And it's recently been confirmed the film will also serve as the big screen debut of arguably DC's most brutal superhero alliance, The Authority.

That news was teased by a casting report from Deadline confirming relative newcomer María Gabriela de Faría has signed on for a role in the Superman reboot. That role is reportedly Angela Spica, better known to the DC-loving masses as the nano-machine-powered crime fighter The Engineer. Spica is, of course, a central figure in The Authority. And if you know anything about that team, you know they're as hardcore as you'll find in the pages of DC Comics, regularly dispatching evil doers as violently as possible.

Gunn himself confirmed the casting of de Faría in the role via Instagram. In vintage Gunn fashion, he did so while contesting Deadline's assertion that The Engineer is a villain. He even called that title "disparaging" to the character, signaling he's keen to stay true to the heroic intentions of The Authority as first rendered by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. And that should be good news for fans of the duo's hyper-violent creation.

This is, of course, not the first news we've heard about James Gunn bringing The Authority into his revamped DC universe. Gunn's intention to depict the crew on the big screen caught many off-guard when he and Peter Safran included a project fronting The Authority in their upcoming slate of DC films earlier this year, if only because Angela Spica and her crew are hardly DC A-listers. Nonetheless, at least one member of that team will make their big-screen debut in "Superman: Legacy." And even as the rest of the gang has yet to be cast, The Authority is already slated to return for a feature film somewhere down the line.

As it is, putting The Authority front and center for a feature clearly signals Gunn's desire to go the way of Marvel and mix in projects featuring fringe characters alongside DC's tried and tested names. That should hardly come as a shock from a filmmaker who's long reveled in so-called "outsider" sensibilities. Gunn has indeed spent much of the past decade indulging in the world of misfit superheroes via his work on Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" franchise, as well as DC's "The Suicide Squad" and "Peacemaker" projects. 

Perhaps more importantly, Gunn proved with those projects that superhero fans are ready to embrace even the oddest and most violent heroes so long as they're presented in the right light. Still, The Authority may push boundaries even Gunn has yet to bridge. And it should be fascinating to see how audiences react to their wildly unconventional approach to heroism.