James Gunn’s $456M Mystery Franchise Is Coming Back To HBO Max Next Week

Image credit: Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection Published Sep 26, 2026, 9:11 AM EDT Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics." Sign in to your ScreenRant account James Gunn's mystery franchise will soon land on HBO Max again, and it has a decent chance of becoming a hit on the streaming service quite quickly. Gunn is one of the most important creators in the entertainment industry right now. He is the creative lead of DC Studios, responsible for one of the biggest movie franchises of all time. The DCU Chapter One is in full swing, and it has led to a couple of streaming hits at the moment for Gunn and HBO Max. One of those is Lanterns, DC's live-action Green Lantern show that airs on HBO and HBO Max. Right now, Lanterns is the most-watched TV show on HBO Max in the United States. The same can be said in the movies chart for Supergirl, which was directed by Criag Gillespie and stars House of the Dragon's Milly Alcock. It is safe to say that Gunn's DC Universe is doing well on streaming. However, the director has an expansive library of movies with potential as streaming hits, ranging from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy franchise to Gunn's non-superhero work. On the topic of the latter, Gunn's iconic mystery franchise, the live-action Scooby-Doo movies from the 2000s, are coming to HBO Max. James Gunn's Scooby-Doo Franchise Is Coming Back To Streaming Both of Gunn's live-action Scooby-Doo movies are coming to HBO Max on October 1. Gunn wrote the two films, while Raja Gosnell (Home Alone 3) served as the director for 2002's Scooby-Doo and 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. The movies are among the many new films and TV shows that will arrive on HBO Max in October. On that same day, high-profile projects like Anatomy of a Fall, multiple releases in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Poltergeist, the Space Jam franchise, Stephen King's The Shining, and many more. Gunn's Scooby-Doo movies arrive just in time for the spooky season. After all, October is the month of Halloween, which is why so many horror movies and franchises are coming to HBO Max at the start of the next month. As for the rest of October, there are other noteworthy movies coming to HBO Max. Those include two major movies starring Sydney Sweeney. The R-rated psychological thriller The Housemaid will arrive on October 9, while the spicy rom-com Anyone But You, co-starring Glen Powell, will come to HBO Max on October 20. In-between those releases are Hugh Jackman's The Death of Robin Hood on October 16 and Jon Bernthal's The Amateur on October 17. The Cult Classics Were A Key Chapter In Gunn's Career While Gunn has since come to lead a shared movie and TV universe at DC, the Scooby-Doo movies were essential to his start in the industry as a writer. Before 2002's Scooby-Doo, Gunn's only credits were the loose William Shakespeare adaptation Tromeo and Juliet and the superhero comedy The Specials, both of which did not make waves. Scooby-Doo gave Gunn a major sandbox to play in and a box office hit. By cementing that run of cult classics with 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, James Gunn would get to make his directorial debut two years later with 2006's Slither, and the rest is history. Scooby-Doo Release Date June 14, 2002 Runtime 87 minutes Cast Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Neil Fanning, Rowan Atkinson, Isla Fisher, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Steven Grives, Charles Stan Frazier, Craig Bullock, Matthew Murphy Karges, Mark McGrath, Rodney Sheppard, Sam Greco, Charlie Cousins, Kristian Schmid, Nicholas Hope, Scott Innes, J.P. Manoux, Chris Cruickshanks, Alex Ruiz, Sheryl Benko, Rio Nugara, David Vallon Director Raja Gosnell Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed Release Date March 26, 2004 Runtime 93 Minutes Cast Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard, Linda Cardellini, Neil Fanning, Seth Green, Peter Boyle, Tim Blake Nelson, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Meilen, Zahf Paroo, Chris Gauthier, Peter New, Morgan Brayton, Lisa Ann Beley, Tara Fynn, Brandon Jay McLaren, Aaron Ydenberg Director Raja Gosnell