James Gunn Officially Changes What The First Canon DC Universe Movie Is

Published Oct 29, 2026, 7:49 PM EDT

Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.

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James Gunn is shifting gears on what the DC Universe's first film is.

Spearheaded by the Marvel alum and longtime producing partner Peter Safran, the new franchise has acted as a touch above a soft reboot of the previous DC Extended Universe, with Gunn generally starting from scratch as the original Justice League roster has either been recast, or are in the process of doing so, while some have remained onboard in new roles, or retconned roles. He previously indicated certain figures and elements from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker would return, as made more clear in the latter's second season, though David Corenswet's Superman was originally described as the DCU's film start.

Now, during DC's "The Suicide Squad: Is It Canon?", Gunn has shifted this canonical timeline to confirm that his Suicide Squad film is officially the first canon movie in the DCU. The podcast, hosted by Gunn, star and real-life wife Jennifer Holland, and star Steve Agee, spent an hour answering many of fans' questions regarding the actual canon nature of the 2021 movie, as well as getting updates on certain actors and characters' future in the series.

The writer/director acknowledged that both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker season 1 were originally conceived as "a part of the DCEU," only for the rebooting of that franchise to lead to him starting over with "the amuse-bouche" of HBO's Creature Commandos season 1 and Corenswet's Superman film in 2025. All the while, Gunn has let other filmmakers continue to work and pitch their ideas for DC's endless library of characters as part of the "Elseworlds tales" lineup, citing Mat Reeves' "very grounded, gritty crime story" of his Batman universe as one such example.

As the podcast drew to an end, and Agee and Holland threw down the question of whether The Suicide Squad is "canon, canon-light" or "canon with asterisks," Gunn ultimately confirmed the 2021 movie is indeed canon to the new series, thus officially making it the earliest-released film in the DCU canon. However, even while having spent much of the podcast attempting to fill in any lore gaps, Gunn welcomed the possibility of users on Threads questioning any details they see as continuity-skewing:

Jennifer Holland: My vote, I can’t really understand, unless you’re really nitpicking on some odd things, why the whole movie can’t just be canon.

Steve Agee: I think so. It’s referenced enough in the current DCU projects that I think it makes it canon.

James Gunn: I’d say we have one small asterisk, which is what exactly is the future of Harley Quinn? I want to be given a little leeway with this by the fans, because I’m not sure exactly how that’s going to manifest itself. But other than that, I think that we can pretty much say the entire movie is canon. I don’t think there’s a problem. Now, maybe somebody’s going to come to me on Threads — and I accept the challenges and try to answer them — with something that can’t be Canon within this movie. And that’s OK, because we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to make mistakes in this movie. We’re going to make mistakes in other movies. But for the most part, I think that it’s that it actually fits much more easily into canon than Peacemaker season 1 does. So, I think that we can actually say that yes, not only is The Suicide Squad canon, but it’s the first canon film in the DCU.

The debate over canonical connections is certainly not beholden to just the world of DC. Marvel's previous licensing of characters to other studios before the Marvel Cinematic Universe's launch has frequently led to questions about ties between Sony's various Spider-Man franchises and the MCU, with Tom Holland's ultimately being the first to be fully set in the latter. However, even those produced by Marvel, including Netflix's Defenders saga and ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., often have found their canonical ties questioned.

Despite the podcast featuring a few notable elements, Gunn's above point about a lack of any major DCU plot holes in The Suicide Squad is a relatively fair one. The two biggest lingering threads were that of Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, both her future and potential backstory retconning after originally being tied to Jared Leto's Joker and Ben Affleck's Batman, and Idris Elba's Bloodsport being in prison for shooting an unspecified Superman with a Kryptonite bullet.

In the same podcast, Gunn also addressed the various questions regarding the DCU's timeline, in which he expressed that fans picking it apart have "got go chill out a little bit," as he states that it's "not possible to make things perfectly line up." He did, however, reaffirm that each title is meant to take place around the time of their release, and given Bloodsport's shooting of Superman wouldn't make canonical sense after Corenswet's film indicated he got his superhero start around 2022, they may "have to push up" The Suicide Squad's story timeline.

Rearrange the movies into the correct US release order.

Given the DC Universe is still in its very early days, thus far only having three released films and three released TV shows, there is plenty of time for Gunn to start to narrow down how to better tie The Suicide Squad into the franchise's timeline. Plus, with the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow about to address the canon of Xolo Maridueña's Blue Beetle, the studio boss is clearly keeping every major question in mind.

The DC Universe is a multimedia franchise based on DC Comics and its roster of iconic heroes and villains. The DCU has inspired an ongoing cinematic universe led by James Gunn and Peter Safran, a previous cinematic universe helmed by Zack Snyder, and several independent movies and TV shows.