Draft:The Authority (film)

The Authority is an upcoming American superhero film based on WildStorm comics featuring the team the Authority. Produced by DC Studios and to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it will be a film in the DC Universe (DCU).

DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran announced a film based on the Authority in January 2023. Writing for the film had begun by then.

The Authority will be released theatrically in the United States. It will be part of the DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters.

Development
Writer/director James Gunn and producer Peter Safran were announced as the co-chairs and co-CEOs of the newly formed DC Studios at the end of October 2022. A week after starting their new roles, the pair had begun working with a group of writers to develop an eight-to-ten-year plan for a new DC Universe (DCU). On January 31, 2023, Gunn and Safran unveiled the first projects from their DCU slate, which begins with Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. One of the films in that chapter was revealed to be The Authority, based on the superhero team of the same name that was created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch for the independent comic book publisher WildStorm. WildStorm was acquired by DC Comics and its characters, including the Authority, were introduced to the DC comics continuity in 2011. Similarly, Gunn and Safran intended to include WildStorm's characters in their own DC Universe continuity, starting with the Authority. Gunn described the film as a passion project that he had been working on an outline for with the other DC Studios writers. He said the Authority believe "the world is completely broken. And the only way to fix it is to take things into their own hands, whether that means killing people, destroying heads of state, changing governments, you know, whatever they want to do to make the world better". Safran compared the morally complex team to Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men (1992). Gunn added that the film would have connections to the well-known character Superman that he felt would help introduce the lesser-known Authority team to audiences in a similar way to how his Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) introduced that film's lesser-known titular team. Orestes Adams at Collider opined that "subversive" superhero television series The Boys (2019–present) and Invincible (2021–present) had paved the way for The Authority. Within days of the film's announcement, copies of Ellis and Hitch's The Authority Book One (1999–2000) had sold out on Amazon and at many different publishing houses and comic book shops. Gunn said he was working with DC Comics publisher and CCO Jim Lee to ensure more copies were printed soon.

By June 2023, members of the Authority were expected to be introduced in the first DCU film, Superman (2025). Casting for those members was to begin after the leads of Superman had been cast, and María Gabriela de Faría was cast as the Authority member Angela Spica / The Engineer for Superman in November.

Release
The Authority is scheduled to be released theatrically by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States. It will be part of the DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters.