Creature Commandos is the first project in James Gunn’s upcoming DC Universe, with it kicking off an all-new cinematic world of DC’s most iconic superheroes and supervillains. Although the Creature Commandos team has been around for a while, they aren’t nearly as popular as some of DC’s other flagship heroes, with many wondering why the new DCU is kicking off with a Creature Commandos series rather than with Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. Creature Commandos doesn’t release until December 2024, but it is one of the most anticipated Max originals of the year, with it introducing many to an all-new team of DC characters.

Based on the comic book team of the same name, Creature Commandos sees Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller form Task Force M, a new Suicide Squad exclusively made up of non-human monsters. The animated Creature Commandos series has an all-star cast, featuring Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Sean Gunn as Weasel and G.I. Robot, Alan Tudyk as Dr. Phosphorous, Zoe Chao as Nina Marzusky, David Harbour as Eric Frankenstein, and Indira Varna as The Bride. Alongside Viola Davis’ Amander Waller, Steve Agee will also return in Creature Commandos, reprising his role as John Economos from Peacemaker.

Screen Rant was at SCAD Animation Fest 2024, the Savannah College of Art and Design’s yearly celebration of the art of animation that takes place in Atlanta, Georgia. While there, Warner Bros. Animation executive producer Rick Morales and EVP of special programming Peter Girardi gave a presentation on the making of Creature Commandos, showing off some exciting concept art and other behind-the-scenes materials from the upcoming series. Ahead of the panel, Screen Rant interviewed Rick Morales and Peter Girardi on their work on Creature Commandos, with them hinting at Easter eggs and the DCU’s future.

Starting The DCU With Creature Commandos Is Perfect For James Gunn’s DC Universe

“James loves these lesser-known underdog characters.”

Screen Rant: Why did you both feel like starting with a lesser-known team, the Creature Commandos, was the right way to introduce the new DC universe to the audience?

Peter Girardi: I had been working with Peter Safran and James Gunn for a while, even before they came over to run DC, and James loves these lesser-known underdog characters – think about the Guardians, right? Especially the more fantastical characters like these monsters and Commandos. I also think it was a great way to onboard a little bit and get his kind of particular POV flavor right out of the gate with animation. James hasn’t done this kind of animation before. Clearly, in all of his films, there’s a ton of VFX, which is a different form of animation. But I think this kind of misfit team that pulls together, that has to learn how to become a family, nobody really is better at it than he is.

Rick Morales: I think he even said it was a little taste test or small bite of the universe before Superman is the main course. You know what I mean?

Peter Girardi: And there are characters in the series that show up in the live action universe as well. So, the plan really is to have a larger continuity between all the different kinds of mediums, which is great.

The Difficulties Of Creating An Animated Project Within A Live-Action Universe

“There was a bit of back and forth so that we could reference each other…”

Screen Rant: Since you had to plan for this show to also have continuity with live action projects throughout production, were there any restrictions that came with designing characters that had to work in live action spaces?

Rick Morales: We saw some stuff. We saw some stuff they were working on.

Peter Girardi: And it went the other way too, with the designs that [Rick Morales] had done for Rick Flag.

Rick Morales: Yeah, there was a little bit of back and forth so that we could reference each other if [Gunn] had stuff that was happening. I remember my favorite moment was when we were recording Frank Grillo and doing some ADR with him. He finally saw Rick Flag in this show and was like, ‘Oh my God, I love that hair. Can I take a picture of it, and when I’m back on set, I want to have him do it just like that.’ I was like, ‘That’s awesome, man. Go for it.’

There was definitely a little bit of back and forth there. James Gunn, he really is involved, so he’s overseeing this stuff. We are showing designs to him, and we’re showing animatics to him, and all that stuff. So he knows when there’s something, even if we’re not aware. He’s like, ‘Oh no, no, no, can’t do that because this is going to happen.’

Screen Rant: On that, were there any specific times that you can talk about where you were trying to pull off something that would be difficult to pull off in a live action project?

Peter Girardi: Yeah, I think a lot of the show is. Look, when we get these projects, a lot of times we’re like, ‘All right, what can we bring to this that even with state of the art VFX would not be able to be executed.’ So there’s a lot of that in the show, really using animation and specifically, 2D animation. [Warner Bros. Animation] really still primarily loves 2D animation, hopefully 24 drawings a second, but there are things that we can’t do, and we welcome that.

Rick Morales: Yeah, and it’s really cool to have someone of James Gunn’s stature supporting that too. A traditionally animated show that looks like this when he’s used to making hundreds of millions dollar pictures.

Creature Commandos Returning Characters & DCU Continuity

“Obviously, we knew Viola Davis was going to be Waller, so there was some continuity there.”

Screen Rant: Were there any challenges when it came to bringing back characters from projects where some aspects aren’t considered canon like the Suicide Squad movies and Peacemaker? What went into deciding who was coming back who couldn’t be used from past films and projects?

Peter Girardi: Again, that’s all James. It’s his universe. He’s architecting it as we go forward. But the first document I ever saw had Weasel in it, so it was like, ‘Oh, cool’. So right away it’s in his continuity of the DCU. And I think that was even before we really started to build it out.

But on my side, we work with a lot of folks inside Warner Brothers that maybe aren’t as familiar with some of these characters. James is as familiar with these characters as we are, and we are both f***ing nerds. So he really gets it, and we can have a real conversation with him that’s like, ‘Well, would we really do that because that’s not the power set.’ And then he’ll be like, ‘Well, actually it could.’ Then we’re like, ‘All right, good point.’

Rick Morales: The best thing that I can remember about that was we were designing a bunch of — we can’t give too much away —but we were designing prisoners. And we just did a bunch of really obscure D-level characters, just to see if we could slip ’em by as Easter eggs. And we sent off the designs to James, and he knew who every single one of ’em was. Immediately. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know this guy, this guy, this guy. We shouldn’t use this one.’ He knew them by name, which is impressive.

Peter Girardi: And that’s great. Because it levels everything up for us, because we live and breathe it. And a lot of times some of the partners maybe aren’t as familiar. And not only that, it’s also the POV you have on these characters, and how you look at them and how you interpret them. His interpretations and his loves that he has, I think, are pretty close to ours.

Rick Morales: And I think to really answer your question, he wrote all the scripts. So what was going to go into these shows is the answer to what was going to be in the universe. So, for Belle Reve it was like, ‘Is this the version from
The Suicide Squad
?’ Obviously, we knew Viola Davis was going to be Waller, so there was some continuity there. But it was never really a big question about what fit in and what didn’t because he wrote it. It’s his stuff.

How Creature Commando’s Soundtrack Compares To Past James Gunn Projects

The Creature Commandos creatives tease that “the scripts have the needle drops…”

Screen Rant: Since this is a James Gunn project, one thing that’s been common throughout all of his projects, especially Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, is the heavy use of preexisting music. Is that something that’s carried over into Creature Commandos?

Peter Girardi: The music is a huge part of it, yes. It’s not the same as
Guardians
. The first script I ever got came with a Spotify playlist. So he knew what this was from the very beginning, and it’s the right choice. It’s a very interesting choice.

Rick Morales: It has got an awesome soundtrack. I can’t wait for everybody to hear it. Like Peter said, I got a playlist shortly after I got the scripts. He’s thinking about this stuff as he’s writing it. The scripts have the needle drops, and this song starts playing while this and this happens. And that’s awesome.

Screen Rant: So in Guardians, Peter Quill’s mother gave him all of the songs. With The Suicide Squad, it was more of an era of music. With Creature Commandos, is there an overarching theme to the music? Can you talk about that?

Peter Girardi: No. (Laughter). But yes, there is an overarching theme and once you see it, you’ll be like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.”

Rick Morales: He doesn’t make arbitrary choices. I see a lot of movies nowadays that try to do what he does, and it’s just like, ‘Let’s drop a clever song in there and do an action sequence.’ That’s not what he does. His stuff is so much more considered, I think, and it all has to do with the story.

Peter Girardi: And that’s all for character, which I sometimes think, especially in genre animation or genre filmmaking, the characters are the first thing that gets lost. Like, ‘Well, why wouldn’t we have 11 gasoline trucks crashed through this orphanage?’ But that’s not what this is from. This is really from the character.

Creature Commandos Balances Its Characters In A Similar Way To Guardians Of The Galaxy

“…It’s very touching in the same way Guardians was.”

Screen Rant: Since there are a lot of characters, I’m sure that finding that balance of which characters are going to get the focus was probably a challenge. Are there characters that you expect to be bigger hits with the audiences?

Peter Girardi: There’s a lot of humor in this at the same time, and there’s a lot of pathos. Because you do get glimpses into who each of these characters are. And they’re monsters on the outside, but they’re not on the inside. And I think their journey, their history, you really get to feel for them. And then once you come around, it’s very touching in the same way
The Guardians
was. You get Peter’s backstory, you get Gamora’s backstory. All of them are carrying baggage and trauma, which kind of is where their motivations really come from. It’s all good storytelling, and that’s in here too.

Rick Morales: I think that’s what James does so well. He focuses on the character. I don’t think he’d ever do a cast that was this large and then not delve into them. There’s a reason for everyone to be there, and it all makes sense.

How Creature Commandos’ Monsters Compare To Previous Iterations Of The Characters

“We had a color thing for The Bride where we had to change the color of a stripe or something like that.”

Screen Rant: Since a lot of these characters aren’t originally DC characters, such as Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein, how close do these characters compare to their Universal Monster counterparts versus trying to stand out from them? Was trying to make original versions of these characters a challenge?

Rick Morales: I think they are definitely being heavily referenced from their DC comic book sources. But even with that, James Gunn has his own take that honors what was done with the characters in the books. But then there’s his own twist on it that makes this stuff fresh. We had a color thing for The Bride where we had to change the color of a stripe or something like that. It wasn’t a big thing because they’re not those characters at all.

Peter Girardi: They’re DC and James’ versions of the characters.

Screen Rant: Do both of you have a favorite character from the Creature Commandos team?

Rick Morales: It is tough overseeing the whole thing and working on everything. There are so many great characters. Personally, I think that the standout is probably going to be The Bride, but I also think everybody’s going to love G.I. Robot. I love G.I. Robot, so I’ll say G.I.

Peter Girardi: I think Frankenstein, to me, was the most unexpected. And David Harbor’s performance is unhinged, which is fantastic.

More About Creature Commandos (2024)

Creature Commandos, from executive producer and writer James Gunn, tracks a secret team of incarcerated monsters recruited for missions deemed too dangerous for humans. When all else fails, they’re your last, worst option.

Check out our other Creature Commandos interviews here:

Creature Commandos comes to Max on December 5.