The title of the most recent Happy Sad Confused podcast is "James Gunn talks SUPERMAN, CREATURE COMMANDOS, BATMAN, LANTERNS, Marvel," so it might surprise you that at the 22:08 mark, host Josh Horowitz directly questions guest James Gunn about the state of the Booster Gold television show.

Josh Horowitz: When Booster Gold came on the scene, that initial twenty-five comic book run is one my favorites ever. So, are we getting close? Because there's been… I'll just ask you point blank: there's a lot of rumors that Kumail [Nanjiani] is going to be your Booster Gold. Can you comment either way?

James Gunn: I mean, we're not quite there yet in terms of Booster Gold. … We're just not quite there. In terms of the scripts aren't quite where I want them to be. You know, from the beginning, you know, I've made it clear that the one thing that we're going to do at DC is no matter what, we're going to wait until the screenplays and the teleplays are ready before we shoot them. And I'm not going to shoot anything until I'm happy with it. … There's other things out there that we're moving. But other things aren't quite there yet. Booster Gold is not quite there.

Note how Gunn carefully doesn't confirm or deny anything while he explains that there is not currently a Booster Gold series ready for production (despite the fact that people have been working on developing Booster Gold scripts for the past 13 years). Make of that what you will.

You can see the whole interview at YouTube.com.

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via threads.net

Technically, this isn't a denial that Nanjiani will be playing Booster Gold. This is a denial that Nanjiani has been confirmed as playing Booster Gold. (And a cautionary tale about reposting content you didn't originate on antisocial media in the Misinformation Age.)

Make of that what you will.

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Since my antennae are always up for Booster Gold news, I'm being bombarded these days by nonstop rumors about which actor will play our hero in the announced James Gunn television show. The latest gossip (reported seemingly everywhere) is that someone has reported that they were personally told by someone else at a convention who it will be. Sorry, Internet clickbaiters, but I'm going to hold out for something a little more concrete before I declare the news Boosterrific-worthy. When DC/HBO are ready to announce the casting, they'll tell us.

Obviously, I'm not excited about this "news," but the dirty truth is that I really don't care who gets cast as Booster Gold on TV. That's because I know that they aren't making a television show for me. Heck, I doubt they're making it for any existing Booster Gold fans.

Why do I say that? Math.

Booster Gold Volume 2, which you would expect all then-existing Booster Gold comic book fans to have bought, sold approximately 53,000 copies of its first issue when first released during the month of August 2007. That's not too bad. Fifty-thousand continues to be a very respectable audience for a comic book even seventeen years later.

Compare that to the final episode of Peacemaker from February 2022. On release, HBO announced it set a single-day viewership record, and Forbes reported that over 584,000 households watched it opening weekend alone. You don't need to be a mathematician to see that 584k > 53k. By a factor of 10!

(If you want to turn those audiences into dollars: At $3.50 cover price, BG v2 #1earned a gross retail income of $185,500 in a whole month. An HBO Max subscription cost $15/month in 2022, so Peacemaker took in some portion of $8,775,000 worth of eyeballs in a single weekend!)

As the data indicates, if I was making television shows, I wouldn't be bothered by the opinions of a small minority 10% (or less) of my potential audience. You know I'm a die-hard comic book Booster booster, and if I could afford to get someone with the name recognition and box office clout of, say, Samuel L. Jackson in the role, you better believe I'd do it. He might not look or sound like Dan Jurgens' creation, but people would certainly pay to see what he delivers. And that's the whole point.

Not that I'm speculating, of course. I wouldn't do that.

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There's been a lot of talk online lately about who will act as or write for Booster Gold in James Gunn's proposed television show. Those choices will certainly be important to the show we ultimately get (assuming that we actually do get a show; remember that credible announcements by credible producers have been made periodically since 2011 with nothing yet having reached your television set), but the central question remains: What kind of Booster Gold will we see?

James Gunn has called Booster Gold a hero with “Imposter Syndrome,” and to a degree that's always been true. Booster's single greatest driving personality trait, his Shakespearean tragic flaw, has always been his unfulfillable desire to be loved. Abandoned by his (no-good) father as a child, most of Booster's greatest tragedies have resulted from his quest for external validation. It doesn’t matter how much good Booster does, nothing can fill the bottomless hole in his psyche's metaphorical heart.

Booster's successes, on the other hand, have generally been selfless acts. For example, very few inhabitants of the DCU are aware that he has saved the universe multiple times for no publicity or personal gain. Granted, he is often reluctant to get involved, and his solutions are not always perfect, but unlike his idol Superman, Booster is only a human doing the best he can to make difficult situations better. Obviously, his need to do the right thing supersedes his craving for recognition.

Booster Gold #31

The biggest pitfall when characterizing Booster is to portray him as an idiot. It's not lack of intelligence but poor judgment, usually driven by youthful brash arrogance, that leads to most of Booster's trademark misadventures (like establishing a casino on a living island or sponsoring a mind-influencing music app). Booster's need for the limelight makes his missteps extra visible compared to the likes of Batman, who operates in the shadows where no one ever sees him trip over his own cape, but Booster's intelligence and dedication to righteousness always see him through to saving the day.

To respect the character of Booster Gold, it will be important that any television series portray all sides of the hero who is, yes, cocky, impatient, and in need of constant adoration, but also intelligent, hard-working, and always well-intentioned.

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Some days, like when we know there's a comic book with a Booster Gold appearance coming out, it's easy to come up with content for the Boosterrific Blog. Other days, like today, it's harder.

I'm sure I could dig up something. (The Internet is a big place.) But today I don't really feel like putting in the necessary effort. So in fairness to you, dear reader, let me explain why.

This blog was created for two reasons:

1) as a catch-all for noteworthy Booster Gold news and events that don't qualify to be cataloged elsewhere on this site, and

2) to provide a regular dose of new content to drive site traffic so that traffic can be monetized.

Since Boosterrific.com no longer serves any paying ads (admittedly in part because I was never able to create enough clickbait to generate enough site traffic to make that effort worthwhile), driving up visitor metrics isn't much of a motivator for me anymore.

That leaves me with only reason 1. And today, I'm not seeing any Booster Gold news or events that I consider noteworthy. Sure, there's yet another new rumor out there about the long-in-the-works "Booster Gold" television show's writing staff, but I prefer to leave the rumormongering to others.

Maybe things will be different next week. In the meantime, thanks for visiting.

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