The Marvel Cinematic Universe resides at Disney while DC Entertainment has its home at Warner Bros. Both franchises make bucketloads of money for their respective corporate overlords so there is little incentive for Disney and WB to combine forces and share the wealth. But in the spirit of Marvel’s latest Disney+ series: What if…there was a filmmaker, nay a hero, strong enough to make such a crossover happen? James Gunn is one of the few creatives to have made a home in both Marvel and DC’s sandboxes. The writer-director scored his first major hit with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (followed up by Vol. 2 and the upcoming Vol. 3) and is now working with DC on their latest supervillain team-up effort The Suicide Squad. Has Gunn ever considered what it would be like to join characters from the two disparate franchises? Well, according to Gunn in an interview with Jake Hamilton, he has not only entertained such a concept, but he’s also spoken with the heads of Marvel and DC about it as well. The specific idea that Gunn has in mind is a great one. He notes that he would like to see a crossover between Guardians‘ Groot and Squad‘s Harley Quinn. As a tree of little words, Groot is perhaps the perfect complement to the chatty Harley. The dynamic between the two would not be that far off from the dynamic between Groot and his friend Rocket Raccoon. A movie featuring the two might allow Margot Robbie to really shine now that she’s got the perfect partner and sounding board. Of course, Gunn is the first to acknowledge that any such concept would be a longshot thanks to miles and miles of bureaucratic red tape. “Whether we could ever get through the Berlin Wall of lawyers we would need to get through to ever make something like that happen I don’t know,” he said. So will we ever get to see Gunn’s dream Harley Quinn and Groot mashup? The easy answer is probably not for the reasons stated above. Marvel and DC have no compelling financial imperative to work together at the moment. But “ever” is a big word. Who would have ever thought that Disney would cut a deal with Sony to share Spider-Man or that the federal government would somehow OK a deal for Disney to acquire 20th Century Fox, bringing the X-Men into the MCU. It’s unlikely that the current cinematic iterations of Groot and Harley Quinn will ever join forces. But as for a Marvel/DC team up? Who knows – if you wait around long enough in the comic movie film world, just about anything is bound to happen.
