DC Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns reveals the strategy behind the company’s sudden TV omnipresence, why secrecy isn’t always the best policy when it comes to superheroes, and why they’re doing things differently than Marvel.
Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed; The CW, NBC, FOX
"By Fans, For Fans" is the unofficial motto of DC Entertainment and the fans appear to be in excellent hands with Geoff Johns at the helm. Since being named chief creative officer of the just-formed DC Entertainment in 2010, the longtime comic book writer (Justice League, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Teen Titans, and Justice Society of America) helped usher five DC Comics titles to television (Arrow in 2012, The Flash, Gotham, and Constantine in 2014, and iZombie — about a brains-eating zombie medical examiner — coming in 2015) and played an integral role in developing the company's upcoming slate of feature films (he produced 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and is slated to write 2018's The Flash movie).
But more than a creative force, more than a producer, and more than a writer, Johns is first and foremost a superfan of the company he now helps run.
That fact became clear during a recent interview with the 41-year-old in his Burbank office about all things DC Entertainment. Surrounded by shelves lined with superhero action figures, walls covered in Batman movie posters, and a very notable Justice League drawing that identified all the major players, Johns spoke quickly — and passionately — to BuzzFeed News about every facet of the multiverse he's come to call home.
This is the biggest DC on TV push we've ever had and what DC has on the air right now is as interesting as the shows themselves. When you look back at development for this season, what was the strategy behind these shows at this time?
Geoff Johns: It started from the top. It started with Kevin Tsujihara [CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment], Diane Nelson [President of DC Entertainment and President & Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment], and Peter Roth [Chief Executive of Warner Brothers Television] making DC a priority — and then finding shows that were all very different. They all had to be extremely different so we weren't just doing Arrow, Arrow, Arrow, Arrow-lite. Everything we talked about, even since, is about how the shows can be very different. Like we have Supergirl and Lucifer in development, and they're both very different than everything we're doing now. It's well past time there's a female superhero out there, both in film and on television, and it's awesome that we're on the forefront of that. It's super-great. We sat down with Warner Bros. Television, Peter Roth, and Susan Rovner [co-president of Warner Horizon Scripted Television] who we work with very closely and talked about the different shows. You had Gotham with Bruno [Heller, executive producer], you had Flash, you had Constantine, and iZombie. iZombie was like this dark horse than showed up because Susan and Rob Thomas had been talking about doing something new and we had been talking to Susan about iZombie, and she helped champion that. I give her a lot of credit for iZombie because that was a great surprise in that it's so different. But we were very conscious to make all the shows unique with unique worlds and unique visions. That's the most important thing because we can't just repeat what we're doing.
The CW
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