DC Studios is officially turning Superman’s favorite photojournalist into a true-crime host, with HBO Max ordering an eight-episode mockumentary series titled The People v. Gorilla Grodd, led by Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Tatro as the infamous super-ape.
Framed as a “true” crime docuseries inside the DC Universe, the show follows Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen as he reopens one of Metropolis’ most sensational trials: the conviction of Gorilla Grodd, a superintelligent ape accused of murdering his father, the King of Gorilla City. Over the course of the series, Jimmy investigates whether Grodd was wrongfully convicted, suggesting that the supposedly open-and-shut case — and by extension Metropolis’ criminal justice system — may be far murkier than the public was led to believe.
Gisondo returns to the role he first took on in James Gunn’s Superman, continuing the DCU’s focus on the Daily Planet newsroom as a lens into superhero-scale stories. He is joined by Tatro as Gorilla Grodd, plus fellow Superman alumni Beck Bennett as sports reporter Steve Lombard, Mikaela Hoover as entertainment columnist Cat Grant, and Wendell Pierce as gruff editor-in-chief Perry White. The series also expands its ensemble with Mary Holland, Eduardo Franco, Arian Moayed, Andrew Leeds, Tim Baltz, and showrunner Dan Perrault himself in on-screen roles, rounding out the kind of oddball cast you’d expect from a darkly comic investigative docuseries.
The People v. Gorilla Grodd comes from American Vandal creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, who are writing, executive producing, and serving as showrunners, with Yacenda set to direct all eight episodes. James Gunn and Peter Safran executive produce through DC Studios alongside Warner Bros. Television, slotting the series into the official DCU slate rather than treating it as an Elseworlds-style experiment. Yacenda and Perrault have described the project as feeling less like a standard DCU chapter and more like an in-universe Daily Planet documentary “artifact,” reinforcing the idea that this is the kind of prestige true-crime series Metropolis citizens would actually stream on their own devices.
The title reveal caps off a long-running bit of fandom confusion over what to call the Jimmy Olsen series, which was first reported under the working name DC Crime when the project surfaced in late 2025. Shortly after those early reports, Gunn publicly pushed back, clarifying that while a Jimmy Olsen-led series from Yacenda and Perrault was real, “DC Crime” was never the official — or even internal — title. With the new announcement, The People v. Gorilla Grodd is now locked in as the show’s proper name, firmly signaling its courtroom focus and playful nods to real-world legal docuseries.
The series also highlights how fluid the DCU slate has become since Gunn and Safran first unveiled their roadmap, which centered on projects like Superman, Supergirl, Lanterns, The Authority, Booster Gold, and Paradise Lost, with some still in development limbo. Alongside October’s horror-focused Clayface movie about the classic Batman villain, The People v. Gorilla Grodd underscores DC Studios’ growing appetite for genre hybrids — in this case blending superhero mythos, newsroom dramedy, and true-crime satire into a single, canon-aware package. By letting Jimmy shine as the face of an investigative series, Gunn and Safran are also doubling down on the idea that the DCU can explore systemic issues — law, media, and power — without always centering capes and fists.
No premiere date has been announced yet, but with an eight-episode order in place, The People v. Gorilla Grodd is positioned as one of HBO Max’s most unconventional DC offerings on the horizon. In the meantime, fans can catch up on Gisondo’s take on Jimmy Olsen in Superman, which is currently streaming on HBO Max and lays the groundwork for the Daily Planet dynamics the new show will further dissect. If Yacenda and Perrault bring the same meticulous, deadpan approach they honed on American Vandal, DCU die-hards, comics readers, and true-crime junkies alike may find that Metropolis’ most notorious ape trial is also one of its funniest — and most unsettling — mysteries.
