James Gunn Says Matt Reeves' Arkham Asylum Spinoff Series Is Set in the DCU

When James Gunn and Peter Safran were brought in to run DC Studios, it was clarified that the Batman projects that director and producer Matt Reeves were developing would be its own thing and separate from what Gunn was planning for his DC Cinematic Universe.

Well, it looks like plans have changed as Gunn has confirmed that Reeves’ untitled Arkham Asylum series will be set in Gunn’s DCU.

Gunn recently responded to a post on Threads asking if Reeves is working on any other DC projects apart from The Batman – Part II, The Penguin, and the untitled Arkham Asylum spin-off series. Gunn confirmed those were the only titles that the filmmaker is currently developing. He then revealed that the Arkham series will be set in the upcoming DCU.

When asked for further clarification, Gunn said, “Yes. We love Matt as a director and producer so he’ll be producing stories both within his The Batman universe and within the DCU.”

If that’s the case, doesn’t that mean that The Batman universe is also technically a part of the DCU? When previously talking about the Arkham series, Reeves said: “We’ve actually now [moved] more into the realm of exactly what would happen in the world of Arkham as it relates coming off of our movie and some of the characters and their origins… almost leaning into the idea of… it’s like a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham. The idea, again the way that Gotham is a character in the movie, I really want Arkham to exist as a character. You go into this environment and encounter these characters in a way that feels really fresh. And so in our work on Gotham, that story started to evolve, and it started feeling [like], ‘Wait, we should really lean into this.’ And then that’s kinda where that’s gone.”

With those comments, it certainly sounds like the Arkham series would be directly tied to The Batman. But, Gunn said the series “wasn’t changed” and that it was always intended to be part of his and Safran’s universe from the start.

Gun said: “It was one of the first pitches we bought when Peter and I came onboard. I don’t know the permutations it went through before that time.”

I guess the project has gone through some changes and is no longer a part of Reeves’ The Batman universe.