You can’t ask people to get excited about *another* Superman reboot

Hello hello, Popculturology readers. Welcome to the Friday newsletter.

What a week of pop culture news. There was a big shakeup at DC Studios. A major name is reportedly in the running to play James Bond. And SNL admitted it has an issue with its cold opens.

Oh, and Disney has partnered with Adobe to generate concept art for its movies. (Booooooo.) I guess that’s the end of me buying Art Of books for Disney movies.

Publishing note

The Friday newsletter will be off next week. It’ll return on Nov. 27.

‼️ THE BIG STORIES

Gunn unloaded

The DCU is a phantom cinematic universe now. For the next year or so, it’ll make moves, it’ll release movies, but the DCU that existed even last week is dead. The shocking news this week that James Gunn and Peter Safran were out as the co-chiefs of DC Studios made that perfectly clear.

The James Gunn era of DC Studios is over | Popculturology

Gunn and Peter Safran's time leading the DCU comes to an end after just four years at the helm.

The OmnicosmBill Kuchman

It doesn’t sound like this change was done on the up-and-up.

Then came Friday, Nov. 6, when Skydance co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz arrived at Gunn and Safran’s offices on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. There, according to sources, the DC heads were told that despite previous assurances they would be part of the new Skydance mega-studio, Ellison and Kreiz had a change of plans. And now, after four years as two of the most visible faces in comic book films and TV, they were out.

While you could legitimately cite things like the DCU failing to score a massive box office hit, the failure of Supergirl or even the lack of urgency when it came to Gunn and Safran releasing films, part of this move seems to have been simple. David Ellison didn’t like Gunn and Safran reporting to him.

Another point of tension: sources say the DC heads were not forthcoming or were slow in sharing plans, slate details and footage with the Skydance movie heads. In the end, [Skydance Motion Picture Group co-chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg] prevailed and new hire [Jeremy Latcham] will report to them.

Another insider is more blunt in the assessment. Ellison never wanted DC to report directly to him in the first place and did not have time for studio politics, such as posturing between division heads.

Maybe Ellison has major plans now that DC Studios is in the hands of Jeremy Latcham, a producer on Nate Bargatze’s acclaimed comedy The Breadwinner.

Let’s say that Ellison’s goal is to reboot the DCU. That he wants to hit the reset button after Man of Tomorrow.

I don’t think he can.

Yes, he’s able to. His dad paid a lot of money for this company.

But a second DC reboot would exhaust whatever goodwill is left for this franchise.

You can’t expect audiences to believe you when you say that this version of Superman is the one that’s OK to become attached to.

(I’d argue that Sony was able to pull off a double reboot of the Spider-Man franchise only because the Tobey Maguire trilogy felt complete and then the promise of the MCU came with the end of Andrew Garfield’s films.)

If Ellison wants to change the course of the DCU, his only real option is to do so with David Corenswet and company — and hope people don’t realize his thumb is on the scale.

• “I would never say never now”: Former Superman Henry Cavill hinted that he’d be open to returning to the role if the opportunity presented itself, telling Inverse: “There’s always a lot of opportunity. As the pigeon sang to Fievel in An American Tail, ‘never say never.’ And I buy into that. I’ve had such a wonderful time playing Superman in the past. I would never say never now.” (Inverse)
• 📖 James Gunn is simply too powerful for Skydance (Sam Barsanti, The AV Club): “So it’s not really an asset to Skydance that one of the guys in charge of one of the biggest IPs on the planet has both a platform and a fanbase that likes it when he has things to say.”
• 📖 The DCU and James Gunn's Batman Was Dead Before It Was Even Born (Jim Vejvoda, IGN): “The prospect of a Batman-less DCU has been an albatross around the studio’s neck since the beginning, something Gunn had been vocal about.”

OK, now I’m super interested in the Bond casting

The rumored final candidates to become Amazon MGM’s James Bond have not sparked much excitement in me. Sorry, Callum Turner, Jack Lowden and Josh O’Connor. I’m sure you’re all perfectly nice generic white dudes, but I was hoping for someone who could really put his stamp on the Bond franchise under Denis Villeneuve.

Well, we might have that actor in ...