One Key Part Of James Gunn’s DC Plan Doesn’t Make Sense

I came away from reading James Gunn’s “Chapter 1” plan of DC shows and films pretty intrigued by what I saw. Most of the projects sound interesting, be they about major characters, Superman, Supergirl, Batman and Robin, Green Lantern, or some unexpected surprises, Booster Gold, The Authority.

However, there is one aspect of James Gunn’s master DC plan that does not make very much sense to me, something that was only touched on yesterday, but in practice it does not seem feasible. Gunn says he wants parity across all DCU movies, TV shows, animated series and video games.

The example he gave was that an animated series would have a voice cast where those actors would also play those roles in live action, should those characters appear. Sure, okay, but for video games?

This isn’t the first time Gunn has talked about video games being a canon part of the new DCU. Back then, my main question was about production schedules, as tightly organized movie and TV show releases do not jive with lengthy video game development times where projects can be delayed for months or even years, given their complexity. How could you possible integrate video games into a sprawling movie/TV release calendar and expect them to land those dates on the dot? This is why licensed video games based on movies faded, because to hit the release dates needed they often cut corners resulting in lackluster products.

But that’s only half the problem. Now what Gunn appears to be saying is that if you make say, another Batman video game, that there Batman would be voiced by whoever is playing Batman in the DCU. An upcoming game like Suicide Squad you’d have to have Harley being voiced by whoever is cast as live-action Harley. As many voice actors will explain, this both discounts incredible voice talent and does not seem actually feasible given the demands of voicework:

Tara Strong is a prime example, as she’s done fantastic work as Harley across TV shows and video games for years. But in Gunn’s DCU, is Margot Robbie supposed to play Harley in a video game? Would a voice talent like the recently departed Kevin Conroy have been scuttled in favor of Robert Pattinson attempting to record voice lines for a Batman game?

While voice/performance actors are indeed “real actors,” a demand that video game roles be populated by those playing those characters in live action does not seem remotely feasible, joining the other problems about video game production schedules probably not working with master comic universe calendars.

While I do agree that we need more and better DC video games from studios besides Rocksteady, the idea that they need to be DCU canon in terms of storyline or their actors is going to be too restricting and not very plausible in practice. I like James Gunn, but this plan feels like something scripted by someone who is not familiar enough with video game development. It’s not going to work.

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