Why James Wan’s ‘The Trench,’ Ava DuVernay’s ‘New Gods’ Got Shelved By Warner Bros

Warner Bros. has excluded two promising projects from its upcoming DC slate — James Wan’s “The Trench” and Ana DuVernay’s “New Gods” — to the disappointment of fans.

The film production company, along with DC Films, announced via The Hollywood Reporter Thursday that they have decided to shelve Wan’s and DuVernay’s works from their new lineup of projects that are due out in 2022-23.

“As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward,” Warner Bros. said in a statement to the media outlet. “We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories.”

The cancellation of Wan’s “Aquaman” spinoff “The Trench” had something to do with his other commitments within the DC Universe, Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reported, citing unnamed sources. Wan is expected to get busy filming “Aquaman 2” later this year.

Meanwhile, “New Gods” — which DuVernay and screenwriter Tom King have been developing since early 2018 — was shelved because “the parameters of that project far exceeded a feature stand-alone structure,” Deadline reported. DuVernay is expected to focus on her DC series “Naomi” for The CW.

Although “New Gods” and “The Trench” are being shelved at the moment, this does not mean that the studio has officially abandoned them for good. They could still materialize in the future. This is something that Warner Bros. acknowledged in its press release when it said, “The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future.”

DuVernay quickly took to Twitter to react to Warner Bros.’ announcement. She admitted that she was upset by the studio’s decision, but she’s thankful for the friendship that blossomed between her and King.

The project was supposed to give life to the comic book characters created by the late artist Jack Kirby. The project’s title refers to the fictional race of characters that was featured in the eponymous comic book series by DC Comics.

Meanwhile, “The Trench” was supposed to be a horror spinoff of “Aquaman” that would focus more on the frightening amphibious creatures that Aquaman and Mera battled in the 2018 blockbuster. Deadline has learned that Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald were writing the script for Wan’s project.

DC already has James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” scheduled for release on Aug. 6. Its upcoming slate for 2022-23 includes John Cena’s “Peacemaker” series for HBO, Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” (March 4, 2022), “The Flash” movie (Nov. 4, 2022), “Black Adam” (July 29, 2022), “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (June 2, 2023), as well as “Blue Beetle” and “Green Lantern Corps,” among others.