DC Studios Shake-Up: Are the Great DC Characters Ever Going to Be in Good Hands?
James Gunn and Peter Safran are out at the top of DC Studios. The news broke on November 9, to the surprise of many, and it comes just months before the release of Man of Tomorrow, the second Superman film written and directed by Gunn. A $250 million movie does not benefit from this kind of upheaval. The timing could hardly be worse. What were the new bosses thinking?
David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Skydance, named Jeremy Latcham as Gunn and Safran’s replacement. The move is part of the aftermath of Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which closed in October.
Early word from the newly combined company was that nothing would change at DC Studios. Clearly, something happened to change that. Latcham will report to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, co-chairs of the Skydance Motion Picture Group. Gunn and Safran, by contrast, had no one between them and the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery. That is a significant shift in where DC Studios sits in the corporate hierarchy. I suspect losing that level of creative freedom caused real friction, and combined with the disappointing performance of DC’s recent releases, it likely sealed their fate.
Whatever the reason, the way Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz handled the exit doesn’t look professional. Gunn and Safran’s contracts ran through 2027. The company could have simply declined to renew them and parted ways then. I’m starting to wonder whether the leaders of the newly merged Paramount–Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery are in over their heads.
It’s hard to believe it has been more than ten years since the DC film universe was handed to Zack Snyder, starting with the controversial Man of Steel in 2013. Then came Justice League (2017), a film with one of the most troubled productions in superhero history. Snyder stepped away during post-production in May 2017 after a family tragedy. Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon to write and direct extensive reshoots, pushing the film toward a lighter, more comedic tone and a tighter two-hour runtime. The reshoots added roughly $25 million, bringing the total cost to around $300 million, and later led to public criticism, disputes with the cast, and a massive fan campaign to see Snyder’s original vision.
That campaign worked. In 2021, Zack Snyder’s Justice League premiered on HBO Max, a four-hour, darker, more mythic version that Snyder says contains no footage shot by Whedon. Snyder has also said he has never watched the 2017 theatrical cut. Sometimes it feels like DC films are doomed to either failure or controversy.
When Warner Bros. Discovery appointed Gunn and Safran in October 2022 to lead the newly formed DC Studios and build a connected DC Universe, fans thought the franchise was finally in good hands. Now we have this fiasco, and another disappointment for DC fans. When will these great characters finally get the care they deserve and the quality live-action films they’re capable of?
I refuse to believe that everyone in moviemaking is incompetent or the DC Studio itself is cursed. Hang with me fans – till next time stay tuned for more. 🙂 Walt