The James Gunn era of DC Studios is over

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a massive leadership shakeup at DC Studios!

Four years after Warner Bros. Discovery hired James Gunn and Peter Safran to lead DC Studios and relaunch the DCU, the duo is out. Former Marvel Studios exec Jeremy Latcham will become president and CEO in their place.

It would be an understatement to say that this news came as a shock on Monday. While the DCU has been uneven — Supergirl was a critical and box office flop while Clayface zigged into body horror — there had been no signs that Skydance was considering a leadership change at DC Studios. While other Warner Bros. Discovery execs were shown the door when Skydance’s purchase of the iconic studio closed, Gunn and Safran were believed to be safe.

Skydance CEO David Ellison reportedly met with them in October, telling Gunn and Safran to “keep doing what you’re doing.”

In just over a month, something changed.

“We’re grateful for their passion, contributions and commitment to this legendary brand,” Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz said in a statement on Monday. “Jeremy has been a longtime creative partner to both, and we have complete confidence that James and Peter will ensure a smooth, collaborative transition and continue this work with care. We look forward to working with Jeremy to build the next generation of DC storytelling and to doubling down on our commitment to fans.”

While Zack Snyder’s DCEU puttered out, with Dwayne Johnson putting the final nail in with his attempt to hijack that cinematic universe, Gunn and Safran’s DCU appeared to be in full swing. Man of Tomorrow, Gunn’s follow-up to Superman is heading to theaters next summer. Wheels were reportedly in motion on movies based on Batman, Swamp Thing and Wonder Woman. There’s The People v. Gorilla Grodd and Mister Miracle heading to HBO Max. (That ambitious ten-project slate Gunn originally announced remains unfinished.)

For now, Gunn and Safran are sticking around in creative roles, with Gunn specifically highlighting Man of Tomorrow.

“That’s not to say Peter and I are immediately done with DC or superheroes,” Gunn wrote on social media. “We have Man of Tomorrow out this summer. And we’ve just been engaged on another DC project which I’m writing, and we'll see where it goes after that. And, of course, the characters we set up will live on.”

One, the Man of Tomorrow press tour is gonna be awkward.

And two, comes off as Gunn putting a positive spin on a reality that his collaboration with DC Studios has come to an end. My guess is they’re going to play out Man of Tomorrow, and then Ellison will be able to reshape the DCU in a way that’s more suited to his outlook on the world. (Or — gulp — to Elon Musk’s outlook now that Musk has invested $1 billion in Skydance.)

I get what David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery were trying to do when they brought Gunn and Safran on board to steer the DCU. Marvel Studios has been guided by Kevin Feige, and the thinking was that they could be the DCU’s Feige. The problem, though, is that Gunn is a hands-on creative with a specific creative vision. Most of the output of the DCU up to this point was either crafted by Gunn or stumbled trying to mimic his aesthetic.

It sounds like Gunn struggled with this responsibility.

“What only the closest people to me have known over the past four years is my time at DC Studios has been trying, to say the least,” Gunn included in his social media post. “I dislike the at-times corporate nature of the job (thanks to Peter for taking the brunt of that). I’m always a very hard worker, but as a filmmaker I would at least get to take short breaks to unwind, and I’ve stolen even that time from both myself and my loved ones over the past four years ... And the thing my ADHD hyperfocus has had the most difficulty with has been dividing my time between projects I’m incredibly passionate about and the ones I’m not so much and all the things I have to do as a studio head.”

If this was just Gunn realizing that he didn’t want to be a studio head anymore, the news that he and Safran were out wouldn’t hit so hard.

“Here’s what I’d venture was the biggest factor behind James Gunn and Peter Safran leaving DC Studios, and getting replaced with someone who is best known as an EP: Skydance has a mandate to produce 30+ movies a year because of the merger; there’s no way Gunn and Safran were ready to ramp up to that,” Comic Book Club’s Alex Zalben wrote on Bluesky. “Instead, the new guy will have a mandate to put out three DC movies a year total: a Batman movie every two years; a Justice League movie every three years; and fill in the rest from there. It won’t work, mind you, but I can almost guarantee that was the discussion and Gunn and Safran said ‘nah.’”

The fact that this comes as Ellison consolidates power over an unprecedented scope of pop culture and media makes the news feel more like Gunn’s vision for what superheroes should represent is getting the boot.

A version of Superman that highlights the fact that he’s an alien visitor who believes in empathy in the face of a technocratic Lex Luthor was also going to be a tough fit under Warner Bros.’s new ownership.