February 2023. James Gunn and Peter Safran announce their ambitious plans for the future cinematographic adaptations of DC and everyone is excited about the announced projects. Not all. And it is that although it is normal that new plans imply leaving out several of those who were doing things up to now, there is a name that stands out above all. And he’s not happy at all.
We are talking about Marc Guggenheimwriter and producer who co-created the so-called Arrowverse with Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg (and in fact was the showrunner of ‘Arrow’ until its end), who has been disappointed and angry at not being part of Warner’s new plans for DC.
In fact, it is one of the notable casualties because Guggenheim was involved with Greg Berlanti in the ‘Green Lantern’ series for HBO Max that was thrown away last year for finally transform into ‘Lanterns’with a quite different approach than the original plan.
“I only spent nine years harvesting”
In a recent issue of his newsletter, Guggenheim talks about his experience working coordinating the Arrowverse and what it cost him to put together “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and all the (many great) crossovers… and how comforting the public reception was:
“Working on those shows always reminded us that the opposite of love was not hate, it was apathy, and no matter what, there was never apathy. Except, ahem, in Hollywood. Hollywood viewed everything we did with apathy. In fact, apathy would have been a step forward.”
This way, the scriptwriter regrets that Warner hasn’t counted on him at least as a way of acknowledging everything he’s been doing for practically an entire decade. Although he admits that he did not expect them to count on him to set up the new DC Universe:
“I’m not surprised. In fact, I assumed they would put together some sort of advisory board to facilitate what I assumed—hopefully—was as ambitious a vision as the DC Universe deserves. But I’ll be honest: I would have liked to have at least one meeting.
Not a job, not at all. A meeting. A conversation. A little acknowledgment of what I tried to contribute to the great rug that is the DC Universe. I only spent nine years harvesting in that vineyard, after all. (Not including many more years writing the Green Lantern movie, the Green Lantern series, and comics like ‘The Flash,’ Batman Confidential, Adventures of Superman, and the Justice Society of America.)»
With this resume and all the time and resources it has takenGuggenheim feels stuck: «The Arrowverse hasn’t led to other bowling, so it seems — at least on a career level — that I’ve wasted my time.”the screenwriter concludes, warning that he is aware that he is not unique in the world, that it seems that loyalty to this or that study does not reward so much.