Zach Cregger’s DC Villain Movie Is on the Table — But Only If This Happens
Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger’s DC villain movie isn’t dead yet — it’s poised to move forward if one key condition is met, with momentum building after his turn producing 2025’s Companion.
Zach Cregger has a DC movie he loves, and it might actually get made. The catch: it could hinge on some very unsexy studio-merger math and a bit of old-fashioned wooing overseas.
Where the project stands (and why it is complicated)
Cregger has been open about wanting to make a DC Studios film he calls his favorite thing he has ever written. As of right now, DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran have not announced anything, and there is no official greenlight.
The freshest wrinkle comes from a Puck report tying the project to the potential Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Translation: if that corporate puzzle snaps into place, this DC movie has a clearer path. Paramount Pictures chief David Ellison is said to be especially keen on making it happen. So keen, in fact, that Paramount co-chair Josh Greenstein reportedly flew to Prague to court Cregger in person. The gist of the meeting, per the report: Cregger wants to write and direct something in a specific corner of the DC universe (the exact character or characters were not revealed), and Greenstein signaled he would be happy to back that, if the corporate stars align.
So what is the movie?
There were earlier reports about a script called 'Henchmen' that follows a low-level Gotham crook who, by sheer dumb luck, takes Batman off the board and suddenly finds his rep skyrocketing in the city's underworld. Those same reports claimed Joker and Harley Quinn would factor in.
Cregger has pushed back on how far that chatter went. He told the Double Toasted podcast he wrote 'Henchmen' years before 'Barbarian' and that it does live in the DC universe, but it is not a Joker-and-Harley script, and he has not discussed it with James Gunn or anyone at DC Studios.
'It got blown out of proportion online.'
The quick Cregger refresher
- Co-directed 'Miss March' (2009) and 'The Civil War on Drugs' (2011) with Trevor Moore (who passed away in 2021)
- Solo feature breakthrough with 'Barbarian' in 2022
- Produced 'Companion' (slated for 2025)
- Follow-up as writer-director, 'Weapons,' hit U.S. theaters this past August
Bottom line: no DC greenlight yet. But if the Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery merger comes together and Ellison keeps pushing, Cregger's favorite thing he has written might finally escape development limbo. Until then, it is a lot of promising momentum tethered to a bigger corporate decision.