Right now, Warner Bros. has a lot of DC superhero movies in production, in pre-production, or in production limbo. Ignoring The Batman and The Suicide Squad, both of which we’ve seen actual footage of, this lengthy list includes The Flash, Aquaman 2, Wonder Woman 3, a Shazam sequel, Black Adam, Green Lantern Corps, Batgirl, a standalone Joker movie, Supergirl, New Gods, Lobo, and the list goes on. Boy, some days it seems like an hour can’t go by with Warner Bros. announcing another new film…like Hourman.
Like most of WB’s DC movies, there are virtually no details about Hourman, other than, as Deadline reports, the studio is co-producing it with Chernin Entertainment, which made the very good modern Planet of the Apes trilogy. We don’t know which Hourman it is, we don’t know if the Justice Society of America (of which Hourman was a major member) is involved, and we don’t even know if Hourman’s powers will come from taking a drug called Miraclo from a tachyon-filled hourglass given to the hero by an android, which wears off after an hour or so and allows the user to see one hour into the future.
Like every long-running comic superhero, Hourman’s overall story is absolutely bananas and I couldn’t explain it to you if I tried. Suffice it to say, Rex Tyler was the first Hourman who served with the Justice Society of America in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, eventually ageing into near-obcscurity. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Rick Tyler, son of Rex, got a hold of some Miraclo and became the second Hourman. Shenanigans ensued.
Hourman is an extremely weird choice to headline a movie. Technically, the character has made a few appearances in a couple of Arrowverse shows (Legends of Tomorrow and Stargirl, specifically) but he didn’t exactly light the superhero entertainment world on fire. To be fair, the CW was also developing an Hourman TV series back in 2013 but it never saw the light of day, cementing the hero as a character people are interested enough in to consider having him headline projects, but not quite interesting enough for people to actually make those projects.
However! It’s worth noting that Dwayne Johnson has hinted that the Justice Society of America might be making its debut in Black Adam, which means Hourman could be appearing there, after which WB hopes he’ll earn his spinoff. Still, that’s a lot of hopes to pin on a hero whose greatest power is taking medication.