Over the weekend, pigeon writes

Hi! just wanted to let you know this thing about the booster gold show. david jenkins just deleted his post about writing the show, and unfollowed james gunn, so he might not be writing it. which sucks, because his writing is perfect for a booster show.

Quick refresher for those who haven't been paying attention to the slow-moving fiasco that is Booster Gold's journey to television stardom: Jenkins had been attached to the project since last July (personally confirming the news on Instagram in a post that has now been deleted), making him the latest in a string of many, many writers and producers gained and then lost since a Booster Gold television show was first teased in 2011. (It's almost old enough to drive!)

Like everyone else online, I can only speculate what this might mean for Booster boosters. Is Jenkins really off the project? Was it his decision? Gunn's? Is the pending Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. already churning the waters? Does social media make everyone act like we're all still in middle school?

Although this sounds like bad news, it also sounds like merely the latest speed bump in Booster's very winding road to live-action adventures. Let's hope this isn't a dead end street.

Thanks, pigeon.

UPDATE: For those who want a reminder of how we got here, here's a link to the Boosterrific! Movie Development page: boosterrific.com/booster/movie.php.

FURTHER UPDATE: Someone on x.com had the good sense to directly ask "Any truth to the rumors that you have left the Booster Gold pilot for the DCU?" and Jenkins answered "As far as I know it's still in the pipeline". Which looks on the surface as a refutation of the rumor. But Jenkins is a writer of some renown, which means he chooses his words carefully, and the words he chose here are not an explicit confirmation of his involvement. So make of this whatever you want, Booster boosters.

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Yesterday I received this breathless email from Heidi:

Creature Commandos spoiler! Did you see Booster after the credits of episode 3 of Creature Commandos? He's in the back of one of the visions of the future Circe shows. That's his first appearance in Gunn's DCU, too!

A few hours later, I got a separate email from Rob Snow, who even shared a screenshot:

I think this is Booster in Creature Commandos. It's a vision.

If I squint at that, maybe it looks like Booster? Raising his hand to the sky, maybe?

I asked Rob what made him think it was Booster Gold. His answer:

Wild rampant unfounded speculation😝

Ok. Well. Fair enough. I can't argue with that.

Obviously, I have not been watching Creature Commandos. All of this is news to me, and I'm the sort of person who, when something is news to me, I do a little Googling. And while I did not turn up any description of whatever it is that happens at the end of Creature Commandos Season 1 Episode 3 "Cheers To The Tin Man" (probably because it was just released yesterday), I did find an official trailer for Episode 4 which includes this screenshot:

Oh, ok. Now I see what Heidi and Rob see. I guess that could be Booster Gold there impaled on the center pike. If I squint.

Thanks to Heidi and Rob for keeping hope alive.

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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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