While the DCEU has had a rocky path to success, the franchise is generally credited as being more experimental than the MCU. One of the most experimental movies in the DCEU is the upcoming The New Gods, based on the classic comic series created by Jack Kirby. Comics writer Tom King co-wrote the script for New Gods with Ava DuVernay, who will also be helming the project as the director. In a recent interview, King teased the film as an epic space adventure with a strong emotional core.

"I want to caveat it cause I like to be as honest as possible, you're just going to get crappy platitudes out of me. Working with Ava is a joy, she's incredibly focused on the emotional core of these characters. It's been fun, I've never written a movie before now. I've done some TV, none of it ever comes out, Hollywood's a weird place. But I've done some of that but this is my first sort of big, huge movie with space battles and all that stuff. It's a ball, as long as we focus on the core Jack Kirby relationships that he created, that make it good, it's going to be a good movie. That's where Ava and I both are."

The characters belonging to the mythology of the "New Gods" first debuted in DC Comics in 1971. Back then, the characters were intended to be a part of the backstory for Marvel Comics' Thor. When Kirby moved to DC, he took his ideas with him, and turned them into a new story about an ancient race of deities.

According to the lore, the primordial Elder Gods had a giant war that resulted in a cataclysmic release of divine energy. That energy split into two parts, to create the fair and beautiful planet New Genesis, presided over by the wise Highfather, and the dark and damned planet Apokolips, ruled with an iron fist by DC Comics' greatest villain, Lord Darkseid.

Part biblical epic, part science-fiction, filled with fantastical characters that exist on a cosmic scale, the New Gods series is ripe for a live-action adaptation. According to King, the upcoming film is not going to be darker than previous entries in the franchise, but it might just be the most ambitious DCEU project so far.

"It'll fall into the 'DC is as ambitious as we can make it. To give a movie like New Gods to a visionary director like Ava. To me Jack Kirby and Ava are very similar creators. They come from similar places and they have sort of parallel histories and I feel like I'm just the person meeting these two people together so they can create something that's unique. I don't know if I'd say it's dark but it's definitely going to be ambitious, it's going to be her doing her thing."

Directed by Ava DuVernay with a script by DuVernay and Tom King, New Gods currently has no release date or cast announced.