In a surprise executive shuffle, James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as CEOs and chairmen of DC Studios. They will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, who will serve as president and chief creative officer.
Gunn and Safran’s exit is unexpected because they were named as part of David Ellison’s business leadership team at the newly renamed Skydance when Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery had closed in October. After four years as heads of DC, resetting the studio’s comic book division to mixed commercial results, Gunn and Safran will return full time to creative work.
Gunn and Safran were appointed in 2022 by former Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, with an edict to fashion a true rival to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Under their direction, the duo rebooted the languishing DC Universe with last summer’s “Superman,” a relative success with $618 million globally, and then stumbled with July’s “Supergirl,” a massive bomb with $126 million on a $170 million budget. “Clayface,” a darker, R-rated body-horror thriller, performed modestly this fall with $109 million on a $44 million budget. Meanwhile, they expanded the comic book empire to streaming with its “Peacemaker” and “Lanterns” shows for HBO Max.
DC’s upcoming big-screen endeavors include next summer’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow,” written and directed by Gunn, and 2028’s “The Batman: Part II,” starring Robert Pattinson. On the television front, there’s the 2027 series “The People v. Gorilla Grodd,” anchored by Skyler Gisondo as his “Superman” character Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Tatro as Gorilla Grodd.
“Four years ago, we set out to unite DC under one creative vision. In that time, we helped restore ‘Superman’ to the heart of DC, while opening new doors and telling new stories in film and television with ‘Peacemaker,’ ‘Creature Commandos,’ ‘Lanterns’ and ‘Clayface,‘” Gunn and Safran said. “We’re immensely proud of the team that turned that ambition into something real, including the actors, crews and executives we had the opportunity to collaborate with. We’ve shared a creative history with Jeremy going back to Marvel, and we’re eager to see the perspective he brings to DC’s next chapter. We’re excited to return to what drew us to this job in the first place, which is telling the stories we love, including the next chapter of Clark and Lex’s journey in ‘Man of Tomorrow.’”
Clayface,” a darker, R-rated body-horror thriller, performed modestly this fall with $109 million on a $44 million budget.
It pisses me off that doubling your production budget is considered “performing modestly” for a medium budget film now. In the 2000s production companies would be lining up to offer sequels and spin-offs. Didn’t fast and furious do about as well on the first movie?
Lets look at that new CEO
Before he signed on for Nate Bargatze’s THE BREADWINNER, Jeremy Latcham had already made a name for himself by producing movies marked by redemptive, biblical values. Earlier Marvel movies, especially, held to Latcham’s drive for biblical and moral values and redemptive arcs.
lmao
everyone at the DCU sub has little to no faith in Latcham JAJAJA https://www.reddit.com/r/DCU_/comments/1xryfvc/new_dc_chief_jeremy_latcham_talks_about_making/
Making superhero movies for a Christian audience
Maybe it’s the irritated pedant in me, but they definitionally already do that because the US and western hemisphere at large are Christian
Every movie made in the US for an American audience is already ‘made for Christians’, just say you want to spade over everything remotely interesting with religious slop
Aww, hell yeah. Superman as a Jesus figure back on the menu boys
Bibleman will replace Batman in the DCU
Is this just Zack Snyder-lite lol
Batman but actually Rand-Man
The Question?
Superman is going to throw the money lenders out of the church? Sweet.
Superman for Calvinists
What this dude said in the podcast Bible Bros earlier this year:
He moved to Texas because he couldn’t find a church in LA that felt right (this part is from a separate interview with one of the two hosts
•He’s a HUGE fan of Chris Pratt, and credits his wife for constantly suggesting Pratt for GOTG until he got cast
•“I left marvel and I had this nagging feeling that I needed to do more movies that had a deeper meaning to me”
•Working with The Wonder Project, he helped make House of David (Biblical drama TV series)
•Also made Sarah’s Oil, starring Zachary Levi
•“Let’s be the HBO For the Faith & Family audience”, wants to make movies/TV that restore faith in things
•Core message: “Faith in God, faith in country, faith in family, faith in fathers, faith in the idea of America, the idea of a democratic free capitalist society” followed by “how do we make these things we believe in front and center in these movies”
•Big fan of Nate Bargatze, introduced to NB by Drew Goddard (Remember, Nate went to the white house UFC event)
•He sought out Nate Bargatze for a The Breadwinner movie because everyone at his daughter’s school (a “middle of the country audience”) couldn’t stop talking about him “He upholds the values we care about and believe in”
•“I’m all for go make your artsy movie or whatever, but…” (when talking about how the kinds of movies he wants to make are not trendy/cool in mainstream hollywood.)
•“I think if it were up to Hollywood, I would just be making big action movies. But I’m always trying to make something else.”
•He says Hollywood basically makes only a few types of movies anymore: R-rated horror, action spectacle, animated films, and “weird art movies”
Looks like a pretty cut and dried example of the Paramount/Skydance buyout being to push a reactionary line in American media as much as anything.
100% this
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It is weird to me in an era where good movies being made by auteur directors are making bank yet the slop companies can’t seem to get that through their thick skulls.
“Hey maybe we should hand these projects to directors who actually take the craft seriously and give them the creative freedom to do something interesting?”
“Are you insane? Pump out more slop!!!”
They do not care about quality, they care about numbers. Joker was kind of great, I don’t know how Todd Phillips was the director on it given everything else he’s touched is slop.
Glad I got one good Superman movie in my lifetime at least
Well it was good while it lasted
No more bread, no more circuses, no more treats
Only slop
hell yeah, Batman meets Hallmark Channel.
thoughts on CEOS (2026)?
AC shocker: fork stuck in light socket.
