DC Studios Reportedly Kills Poison Ivy And Catwoman Shows As The DCU's TV Slate Keeps Shrinking

Published 17 August 2026. Words like "tonight" or "next week" refer to that date.

Two more DC Studios projects are reportedly dead. According to a report that Chris Carr and I discussed on the show, DC and HBO have passed on planned television series centered on Poison Ivy and Catwoman, both of which were originally pitched as part of the Gods and Monsters phase of James Gunn's DCU.

This matters because these were two of the bigger swings left on that original 2023 slate, and losing them raises real questions about what DC Studios is actually building toward on the small screen, especially with no confirmed Batman for this universe.

Poison Ivy And Catwoman Shows Reportedly Scrapped From DC's Gods And Monsters Plans

This all comes to us from Mark Cassidy. With Lanterns set to premiere on HBO on Sunday, August 16, The Ankler published a report detailing that show's tumultuous journey to screen while also sharing disappointing updates on other small screen DCU projects. According to the report, Poison Ivy and Catwoman were both potential shows that were going to be part of this Gods and Monsters phase, but DC is now moving on from them. As the report frames it, these projects aren't officially shelved, but they aren't being prioritized either, which I find a very interesting distinction.

Why Losing A Poison Ivy Show Tied To Matt Reeves' Batman Stings

The bummer for me on Poison Ivy specifically is that it was said to be a version of the character who could fit into Matt Reeves' universe, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Ivy is one of those characters who can exist in the more mythical, fantastical side of DC storytelling, but she can also work as a very grounded, realistic character, an eco-terrorist type. That's the version I was hoping for. But we still don't have a Batman movie from Reeves yet, so it's a tough spot for a spinoff to launch from.

Chris Carr And I Question Whether DC Can Build Villain Shows Without An Established Batman

Chris Carr compared the situation to Sony's Spider-Man villain movies without Spider-Man, saying it's like the "Sony Spider-Man villains type thing. We don't really care without Spider-Man as much." A one-off villain project can work, but building out a whole library of them before Batman even arrives is a different problem. Chris also pointed out that these shows have historically tried to make audiences root for villains, when really you want to stay conflicted about them, not fully on their side, using Poison Ivy's habit of literally kissing men to kill them as an example of a character trait that's hard to root for.

I brought up Batman: The Animated Series as an example of doing this well, since that show often put Batman in the role of antagonist rather than outright villain, letting you see the story from the villain's perspective while Batman thwarts them. That only works, though, if the writers fully commit to the villain doing something genuinely bad. Chris also raised the bigger issue with a Catwoman show specifically: Zoe Kravitz isn't returning for more Batman films, so would a Catwoman series exist in James Gunn's DCU instead, and if so, who is her Bruce Wayne? Catwoman is so romantically tied to Bruce Wayne and Gotham's criminal underworld that jumping ahead without establishing that relationship first feels like doing things backward.

Not Knowing Who Owns The Studio Or Who Plays Batman Is Freezing Everything

Both of us agreed the throughline for basically every story we covered is that nobody knows who is going to own the studio or who will be running it once the dust settles. There's an antitrust trial around the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery situation set for March of next year, and it's hard to greenlight scripts or productions when you don't know the trajectory of your own studio. I also don't think James Gunn's hands are fully his own right now. As I put it on the show, at some point he's going to have to get to the point where he either gets a real answer or considers walking away, because right now he can barely pitch anything with the merger situation still unresolved.

Is DC's 2023 Slate Repeating The Old DCEU's Mistakes?

We also went over an analysis from Josh Wilding questioning whether DC Studios' TV plans are starting to look like the old DC Extended Universe's habit of announcing projects years before they were ready, only for many to disappear or be reworked. Gunn and Peter Safran unveiled an ambitious slate back in January 2023 built around Gods and Monsters, including Waller, Paradise Lost, Lanterns, Booster Gold, and Creature Commandos. Three years later, Creature Commandos has aired, Peacemaker season 2 arrived, and Lanterns debuted on August 16, but the rest of that original plan looks shaky. The report argues HBO is becoming increasingly selective about which DC projects it wants to carry, and questions whether HBO even wants a steady stream of DC programming given the reception to shows like Supergirl and Peacemaker season 2. I did push back on one part of that report, though, the claim that Lanterns' marketing has been scared to acknowledge it's a comic book series. I think that's not fair, because I felt the last two trailers were actually strong.

Chris Carr brought up Booster Gold as an example of DC prioritizing the wrong things, saying the average moviegoer would just ask "who the hell is that?" We also both pushed back on the idea of an older Batman for a potential Brave and the Bold project, since jumping straight to an aged Bruce Wayne with Damian Wayne as Robin without ever establishing that Batman first is a much harder task than it looks, and risks splitting the audience the way two competing James Bonds running at once would.

Paramount Reportedly Open To Selling CNN To Close The Warner Bros Discovery Merger

Separately, Paramount Skydance is reportedly open to selling off CNN in order to get its merger with Warner Bros Discovery finalized. Reuters reported that Paramount Skydance chief legal officer Min Dillaram attended Politico's California agency conference on Tuesday, where he reportedly stated that a possible sale of CNN is on the table. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, leading eleven other state attorneys general, is challenging the merger as the last major regulatory obstacle after the UK already cleared the takeover with a five-year guarantee protecting Channel 5 News' editorial independence. A federal judge has set the antitrust trial for March of next year, and there have also been reports that Paramount is considering pulling operations out of California entirely. California's likely next governor, former US health secretary Xavier Becerra, said he wouldn't want to lose a major company like Paramount to another state. A separate Wall Street Journal report indicated Paramount has discussed creating an editorial board for CNN, with the company telling the outlet, "We'll always remain open to internal improvements to journalistic integrity."

To me, that all sounds like a lot of PR and legal language designed to say as little as possible while keeping the door open. Chris Carr and I both agreed the threat to leave California feels like an empty one. We also noted that no matter how anyone feels about the politics, this is still fundamentally a monopoly question, and pointed out that when Disney bought Fox, it only bought the studio and film and TV assets, not the entire company, which is likely why that deal moved more smoothly.

Barbie Sequel Team Reportedly Offered "Life-Changing" Paydays Before A December Deadline

On the Barbie front, Variety reports the Barbie team has been offered massive paydays as Warner Bros races to lock down a deal before December. If a deal isn't reached with Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and co-writer Noah Baumbach by then, Mattel would have to pull the IP from Warner Bros and reboot with no talent or story elements from the original film allowed. Variety says the studio has made more than six offers over the past three years, all rejected, with sources describing them as the highest Warner Bros has ever offered a filmmaking team, dubbed "life-changing money," including pay bumps, upfront fees, and generous back-end participation, though not first-dollar gross. Gosling is said to be asking for twenty million dollars, with Robbie likely commanding considerably more given she earned over fifty million on the first film between acting and producing. One rival executive summed up Warner Bros Discovery chief David Zaslav's resistance to the trade as "classic Zaslav."

My take is that Zaslav simply isn't known for making things; his role has largely been to dismantle Warner Bros Discovery and sell it off for parts, so it's not surprising he'd let a deal like this stall. Chris Carr and I both said it's genuinely surprising a sequel wasn't contractually locked in from the start given how much money the first film made. One possibility floated in the report is that if the Paramount-Warner deal goes through, new ownership under Ellison could reactivate the Mattel rights and bring the creative team back into the fold.

Do you think DC's TV slate is genuinely in trouble, or is this just James Gunn's team figuring things out as the Paramount merger situation plays out?