Every cinematic universe eventually hits the same wall: how do you make audiences care about a telepathic super-gorilla without it sounding like the fever dream of a Wikipedia rabbit hole gone terribly wrong? DC Studios thinks it has the answer, and it comes wrapped in mockumentary packaging, narrated by Superman’s scrappiest photographer, and starring one of the most famously smug apes in comic book history. Welcome to the strange, wonderful, and honestly kind of genius pitch behind The People vs. Gorilla Grodd.
Okay, But What Actually Is The People vs. Gorilla Grodd?
According to reporting from Gamereactor, the series is officially in development for HBO Max, with Skyler Gisondo reprising his Superman role as Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Tatro stepping in as Gorilla Grodd himself.
James Gunn reportedly described the project as DC Studios’ “first foray into the true crime genre,” which is either the most unhinged sentence ever said about a comic book universe or the most inspired one, depending on how much coffee you’ve had.
The premise, as detailed by Infobae, follows Jimmy Olsen investigating whether Gorilla Grodd — convicted of murdering his own father, the king of Gorilla City — actually got a fair trial.
Framed as an in-universe true crime mockumentary-esque docuseries picking apart one of Metropolis’s most notorious homicide cases, The People vs. Gorilla Grodd essentially asks the question true crime fans have been asking about human defendants for a decade, except this time the guy on trial can bench-press a school bus and read your thoughts. Somewhere, a Serial producer is quietly furious they didn’t think of this first.
Earlier reporting from Variety and IGN — back when the project was still known by the working title “DC Crime” — confirmed the same core concept and cast, alongside returning Daily Planet regulars Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant, Wendell Pierce as Perry White, and Beck Bennett as Steve Lombard.
The show comes from Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, the minds behind American Vandal, a show that famously made a Netflix true-crime parody about who spray-painted genitalia on faculty cars feel like prestige television. If anyone can make a wrongfully-convicted psychic gorilla feel emotionally grounded, it’s the guys who already made vandalism riveting.
The Case For The People vs. Gorilla Grodd As The DCU’s Secret Weapon
Here’s the thing about building a shared universe: eventually you have to introduce characters that sound absurd on paper. Gorilla Grodd is a telepathic, super-intelligent ape from a hidden city who has been fighting The Flash in the comics since 1959, as IGN notes in its rundown of his history.
Try explaining that to someone who’s never picked up a comic and watch their face. The People vs. Gorilla Grodd solves this problem by doing something almost nobody has tried before: instead of asking audiences to just accept Grodd as a menacing CGI threat in a two-hour blockbuster, it gives him room to be a person — or, well, a gorilla-person — with motives, grievances, and maybe even a sympathetic defense. A true crime format practically forces the writers to treat him like a character worth investigating rather than a plot device worth punching.
That’s the real magic trick buried in The People vs. Gorilla Grodd: it takes one of DC’s most inherently ridiculous villains and lets the docuseries structure do the heavy lifting of making him feel real. True crime as a genre lives and dies on making audiences empathize with morally complicated people.
Apply that same toolkit to a superpowered gorilla accused of patricide, and suddenly you’ve got a show that could make casual viewers care about Gorilla City lore without ever assigning homework.
It Also Finally Gives The Daily Planet Room To Breathe
Superman movies, by design, don’t have time to hang out at the Daily Planet office. There’s a city to save, a Lex Luthor to foil, a cape to keep from getting tangled in a helicopter blade.
But the newsroom chemistry between Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen, Hoover’s Cat Grant, Pierce’s Perry White, and Bennett’s Steve Lombard was one of the most beloved parts of 2025’s Superman, and The People vs. Gorilla Grodd is basically a built-in excuse to spend eight full episodes with them instead of ninety rushed seconds.
Reporting from both Gamereactor and Infobae confirms all four actors are returning, which means the show isn’t just borrowing the Daily Planet’s name for brand recognition — it’s actually built around the ensemble fans already fell for.
That’s a genuinely clever use of streaming real estate. Theatrical DCU movies need to move at blockbuster speed; The People vs. Gorilla Grodd doesn’t. It can let Jimmy Olsen be an actual investigative journalist instead of comic relief with a camera, let Perry White grumble about deadlines, and let Cat Grant and Steve Lombard needle each other in the background while the “real” story about a possibly-wrongfully-convicted super-ape unfolds.
It’s grounding by proximity — the wilder the DCU gets on the big screen, the more valuable it becomes to have a show where people just argue about journalistic ethics in a newsroom that occasionally has to cover super-gorilla murder trials.
A Blueprint For Every Weird DC Character Down The Line
If The People vs. Gorilla Grodd works — and given the pedigree of Yacenda and Perrault, whose American Vandal earned a Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination according to Variety’s reporting, there’s real reason to think it will — it could become a template DC Studios reuses constantly.
Got a C-tier villain with a goofy backstory that would eat up ten minutes of screen time in a movie? Give them a mockumentary. Let a docuseries crew “interview” witnesses and unpack motives at a pace theatrical releases simply can’t afford.
The People vs. Gorilla Grodd isn’t just a fun one-off; it’s a proof of concept for introducing the deep bench of obscure DC characters without ever making a two-and-a-half-hour movie stop dead to explain who they are.
Final Verdict
Is it objectively funny that DC Studios’ first “true crime” project is about a telepathic gorilla’s murder trial? Absolutely, and that’s part of the charm.
But underneath the joke, The People vs Gorilla Grodd is a legitimately smart piece of universe-building — one that gives underused Daily Planet characters a real spotlight, treats a classically silly villain with unexpected dignity, and gives the sprawling DCU a grounded, character-driven show to balance out the spectacle of the movies.
Objection, overruled: this case deserves your attention.
Sources referenced: Gamereactor · Infobae · Variety (AU) · IGN via AOL · Variety via AOL
