James Gunn and Peter Safran are Stepping Down from DC Studios

Well that didn’t last long. Almost exactly four years to the date of the announcement of their hires, news has broken that James Gunn and Peter Safran will be stepping down from their roles as co-CEOs of DC Studios.

Starting in December, former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham will be taking over as head of DC. Ironic that a former Marvel guy will be heading up DC just as the MCU gears up to release its 39th film of the franchise, Avengers: Doomsday. In the nearly two decades of cinematic superhero dominance since, DC’s attempts to compete have been inconsistent at best. Consider that The Dark Knight came out the same summer as Iron Man. In that time, DC has shuffled its executive heads and creative directions a half dozen times before settling into this current era with the formation of DC Studios in 2022.

When Gunn was entrusted with the DC Universe, he set out to restore the brand after several box office disappointments and factional fanboy infighting led to the demise of the Snyderverse and DCEU. Superhero cinema historians will argue about how successful Gunn was at achieving that. His soft reboot consisted of three films (Superman, Supergirl, Clayface), two live action series (Peacemaker season 2, Lanterns), and an animated series (Creature Commandos). He and Safran also produced “Elseworlds” off-shoots that didn’t fit into the “Gods and Monsters” continuity he was building (The Penguin, My Adventures with Superman, or the upcoming The Batman sequel), so it’s hard to render a single verdict on his tenure. Superman was generally well received. Supergirl, less so. Gunn is still planning to release Man of Tomorrow next year. At least that’s what he said in a post on Instagram:

That said, whether that movie still comes out is kind of not up to him anymore. Sadly¹.

But as a longtime fan of DC, it’s almost expected to see Warner Bros. fumble the brand over and over again. While I wasn’t a hundred percent behind every creative choice in this current iteration of DC on screen, I was at least hopeful to see someone as passionate about these characters be entrusted to tell their stories.

We’ll see what the future holds in a post-Gunnverse world. But like the Snyderverse and Arrowverse and Nolanverse and all other ’verses before it, all I really want are good movies featuring my favorite superheroes.

1. It’s also kind of amusing that one of Gunn’s last official DC Studios projects was a podcast trying to explain what is and isn’t canon in his universe. Guess the answer is “it doesn’t really matter anymore.” ↩︎