Posted in: Movies, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: booster gold, opinion, the studio

Booster Gold Series: Victim of "The Studio" & "Wonder Man" Success?

As we continue to wait for any developments on DC Studios' Booster Gold series, we look at how The Studio and Wonder Man could be a factor.

When DC Studios' James Gunn and Peter Safran rolled out the first wave of DCU films and television projects, a live-action series take on legendary comic book writer and artist Dan Jurgens's Mike Carter, aka Booster Gold, was one of the announcements that hit our radar pretty hard. After things were quiet for a while, we learned last summer that Our Flag Means Death creator David Jenkins was attached to write the pilot. In addition, it was reported that plans were to have Jenkins serve as showrunner if the pilot is given a series order. Since that time, things have gone quiet once again, with Jenkins responding on social media to reports that he had departed the project, posting, "As far as I know, it's still in the pipeline." While there's no set rule or "statute of limitations" when it comes to how long you have to wait to drop a theory or speculation, we're feeling like Booster Gold has crossed into that territory. In this case, did Apple TV and co-creator Seth Rogen's award-winning The Studio and Disney+'s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley-starring Wonder Man steal the potential series's thunder?

The vibe around the series was that the approach would focus on Booster's desire to become a big-time celebrity superhero, with marketing deals, corporate sponsorships, and social media success. If that's the case (again, just speculating), we're looking at a series that combines comedy and drama, with some serious satirical knife-twisting of Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole (maybe with a focus on superhero films). But isn't that the very territory that The Studio and Wonder Man (and to some extent, HBO's painfully smug The Franchise) already staked out? Tearing up the awards season while continuing to pull big viewing numbers and critical praise, The Studio has pretty much cornered the market on roasting Hollywood. It's now the bar by which all Hollywood satires will be judged – and it's a high one.

That what had us worried when we read that Wonder Man was looking to be the MCU's satirical take on the Hollywood system and the moviemaking process. Though Apple TV's hit series still holds the crown, Wonder Man deserves credit for hitting much harder than we expected; coming from Marvel Studios, I wasn't expecting the level of self-deprecation that we got. But what helped separate Wonder Man from The Studio comparisons was how amazingly well-developed Abdul-Mateen's Simon Williams and Kingsley's Trevor Slattery were as characters – from both the writing and performance perspectives. The bond of friendship was so different and refreshing and meaningful that we couldn't help but want to see more of them together as a team, dealing with the hardships of Hollywood and the complications of keeping Simon's powers off the radar. Basically, Simon and Trevor have their own "Booster/Skeets" dynamic.

So, could the success of The Studio and Wonder Man be a factor in why Booster Gold is still at some point in the developmental stage? We could see it as a factor, though it would be hard to pin it as the reason when so many other factors come into play these days in deciding which shows make the cut and which don't. Are there other creative directions that the series could take to carve out its own path? Stay tuned…

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