Ava DuVernay Teams With ‘Batman’ Comic Book Scribe Tom King For Warner Bros./DC’s ‘The New Gods’

Ava DuVernay announced on Twitter today that Batman writer Tom King is coming aboard to write The New Gods with her, the DC film project she has set up at Warner Bros.

Deadline reported last year that DuVernay is attached to direct a big screen adaptation of the Jack Kirby comic.

The New Gods was the Genesis of the uber-villain Darkseid. Also called “Fourth World,” the story unfolded in a trilogy of related comics written and drawn by Kirby that were published in the very early 1970s: New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle. The New Gods came into existence after the world of the gods of classic mythology were destroyed during Ragnarok. The deities inhabit two planets: one is New Genesis, a lush paradise, and the other Apokolips, which sounds like Dante’s version of hell. War ensues. There is a rich universe of extraordinary characters for DuVernay to play with here.  This will be a fun one to follow.

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King won the the Eisner Award last year for best writer on the comic books Mister Miracle and Batman. At the time of the project’s announcement, Warners had set Kario Salem (Chasing Mavericks) as writer of New Gods. 

DuVernay’s Netflix limited series When They See Us about the Central Park 5 is streaming this Friday. Based on a true story, series follows five Harlem teens who become trapped in a nightmare when they’re falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

Deadline exclusively reported back in November that the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning director signed a $100M multi-year, multi-genre deal with WBTV.

Here’s DuVernay’s Tweet below about today’s news: