After officially starting his tenure with Peter Safran as the co-heads of DC Studios, James Gunn has been providing only general answers to queries about where they are taking their superhero film and television projects for Warner Bros. Discovery, widely re-christened as the DC Universe. But James Gunn’s post on a new social media platform may have given a hint as to a specific character he would like to play with: The Main Man, Lobo.
James Gunn’s first Mastodon post
Twitter has been experiencing a sort of schism with celebrities staging an exodus due to the changes being implemented by billionaire Elon Musk. DC Studios Co-CEO James Gunn, while still retaining his Twitter account active, is one of the celebrities who is testing the waters on a new platform called Mastodon. Mastodon is a free, open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. Basically, it creates a microblogging instance hosted on a specific independent server instead of a centralized server, as in the case of Twitter. While it remains to be seen how well Mastodon is going to be adopted, James Gunn’s cryptic choice for his first post on the new platform piqued DC fan interest. What is interesting about Gunn’s first toot (Mastodon’s version of a tweet) is that includes artwork of the Last Czarnian galactic bounty hunter called Lobo. The character of Lobo first appeared in DC Comics’ Omega Men #3, cover dated June 1983. Since his first appearance, Lobo steadily grew in popularity. Much of this interest among the fandom is due to Lobo’s over-the-top persona. As creator Keith Giffen describes him, Lobo is a hyper-masculine archetype that takes tropes of dark and edgy superheroes of the 1990s to the extremes. Lobo is super-strong, near invulnerable, can regenerate from any injury, can survive outer space, has enhanced senses, and is always armed to the teeth. As an antihero, he has even fought Superman and given the Man of Steel a run for his money. Just to emphasize his extreme edginess, Lobo once went into the Afterlife and fought the forces of Heaven and Hell by himself, and both realms rejected him as too much of a troublemaker to stay dead. Aside from comic books, Lobo has appeared in other media. He had a popular version for the DC animated universe (voiced by Brad Garrett). He has also been portrayed in live action in the short-lived Krypton series on Syfy by actor Emmett J. Scanlan.
Jason Momoa’s dream project
In relation to this, Jason Momoa was recently asked in an interview during the promotion of his upcoming Slumberland project for Netflix about what he thought regarding James Gunn’s post on Mastodon.
What’s going on here, @JamesGunn?! pic.twitter.com/jToFVwQsl2 — BD (@BrandonDavisBD) November 9, 2022 Momoa is an avid comic book fan, and Lobo is his favorite, reflected in his answer: Some fans of the DC Universe have been vocal that Lobo would be a more perfect fit for Jason Momoa rather than as Arthur Curry aka Aquaman. Although Momoa has expressed his love for the DC Comics Lobo character, it is very unlikely that he would drop his Aquaman role for it. Despite fan speculation, Aquaman is already a proven superhero brand with a global appeal. More than that, the first Aquaman film is currently the most financially successful DCEU movie, with it being the only one to break into the billion dollar club after a worldwide box office haul of $1.148 billion. With the sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom being highly anticipated, particularly after confirming the appearance of Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, the idea of Jason Momoa choosing Lobo over Aquaman is wishful thinking. But never say never. It is not unheard of for an actor to play different roles in an existing superhero cinematic universe. For instance, actress Gemma Chan played the Kree Minn-Erva for Captain Marvel (2019) as well as Sersi in Eternals (2021), both for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For the meantime, fans of Jason Momoa can watch him play the satyr Flip in Slumberland in limited theaters today and streaming on Netflix starting November 18, 2022.
