Ava DuVernay tapped to direct New Gods for DC/Warner Bros.

Ava DuVernay is the director of A Wrinkle In Time, but I’m not trying to hold that against her. There is some indication that she actually wishes to direct this particular superhero movie, which is good; and New Gods is of course Jack Kirby at his Kirby-ish.  If it’s walled off from the rest of the DCEU — if, indeed, it can even be said to be part of the DCEU, Steppenwolf or no — that may very well be for the best.  I have high hopes for the Aquaman movie, but we’re still trying to get a director who can really understand Superman as a concept. Or who can be allowed to show that concept, I suppose.

So I hope DuVernay can make it work. But — speaking as a DC comics kid — I really wish that DC had somebody like Kevin Feige directing traffic. It’s not so much that all of the MCU movies flow into each other; it’s that the Marvel movies are all being watched over by somebody who fundamentally cares about the source material. Then again, I have no idea who that might be, so what do I know? I guess that the best that we can hope for is the occasional good standalone. May this be one of them.