James Gunn and Peter Safran demoted at DC Studios? Variety report

Variety's new report on DC Studios says James Gunn and Peter Safran were demoted, not that they stepped down. In my reading, it confirms what I suspected: they were removed. I think it spells the end of the DCU in its current form. The report also says Lanterns season 2 hasn't been greenlit and that Clayface won't break even. I think it reads like a hit piece, and I think Paramount will be going scorched earth on these guys. They've brought the long arm of the press to a gunfight, and I'm expecting more of these pieces to follow.

The Skydance reporting change Variety calls a demotion

According to Variety, the pair had been assured they would remain part of David Ellison's leadership team at the newly structured Skydance entity. But Ellison and his co-CEO ultimately shifted their reporting line to the new Skydance Motion Picture Group's chiefs, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein. Under the prior regime, Gunn and Safran answered directly to Zaslav rather than film co-chairs Mike De Luca and Pamela Abdy. The article says the change amounted to a demotion, and that the new ownership chose not to keep them in the top role.

Why I don't believe James Gunn stepped down from DC Studios

It was unlikely that Gunn left voluntarily, because his replacement was hired and ready to go straight away. Plenty of people told me he stepped down. But when two leaders leave and a replacement is installed almost immediately, something was probably going on behind the scenes. From what I understand, David Ellison had been talking to the new hire for months. You don't put people in charge of multibillion dollar studios on a whim.

What I wasn't expecting was for this to break so fast. They didn't even give Gunn and Safran a week to keep up the line that it was a mutual parting of ways. Hollywood is ruthless. Unfortunately for Gunn, he spent four years embarrassing and debunking reports from the trades, so I don't think any outlet is going to come to his support.

Studio sources have connections with the trades, and they tend to leak stories to push a narrative. I think this reeks of Paramount trying to show their decision was right, airing their dirty laundry in public to reinforce the opinion that the Gunn era had in fact misfired.

Gunn's canon podcast and the Margot Robbie Harley Quinn question

I don't know how anyone thought Gunn stepped down when, shortly before, he had been on a podcast talking about what was canon, how he was close to casting Batman, and that he was working on a Polka Dot Man show. I think that podcast might have been one of the deciding factors, because I don't know how you watch it and think it's a good look. They're three movies in and having to explain the continuity. It shouldn't be this messy.

When they discuss which scenes and characters in a film are canon, it gets confusing. If it's all one story and the characters are all interacting and pushing it forward, then the events of that film must be canon. I can't pick up The Dark Knight and say Batman is canon but Harvey Dent isn't, because that removes the whole Two-Face storyline.

Gunn saying that Harley Quinn being canon depends on whether Margot Robbie comes back shows he didn't have a plan, when they were supposed to have a 10-year road map. He didn't even know if the Joker existed in his universe. A universe hinging on whether Margot Robbie could be asked to return is not a great way to build one.

DC's decade of studio leaders: Snyder, Johns, Berg, Hamada, Gunn and Safran

The report adds that the departure wasn't entirely unforeseen, because DC has burned through a lot of studio leaders over the last decade. Zack Snyder started things off crafting his universe, which was then taken over by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. Walter Hamada then entered and we had a string of disappointments, though I feel like the studio would kill to make that sort of money in the current market.

People were vying for the reins. Dwayne Johnson wanted to build a Black Adam centered universe with Henry Cavill as Superman, and Todd Phillips was even offered it after Joker.

Zaslav settled on Gunn and Safran in 2022 with a clear mandate: rebuild the company's most valuable intellectual property into a coherent, competitive universe. Variety says the studio ultimately wasn't confident in where they were taking things, and that their projects didn't gain audience enthusiasm.

Starting the universe with an animated Creature Commandos series was a bold strategy. I think everyone knew it was a bad idea except those two guys. Because it was animated and didn't have many viewers, I think people gave it a pass, since Superman was a proper film.

Variety says Superman (2025) didn't create the impact the studio wanted

The report opens in the summer of 2025, as James Gunn's Superman, starring David Corenswet, completed its opening weekend and David Zaslav appeared ready to celebrate. The film delivered an early global total that looked promising in an era of shrinking superhero audiences. However mixed the final box office, Superman still beat every Marvel release that year.

Superman performed at a level where you could write any headline you wanted. It made the same as Man of Steel, so it sucked. It did great in an era of superhero fatigue. The DC brand was weak after the earlier phases, so this was a step in the right direction. The fact it beat Marvel made it seem like they'd made the right choice in Gunn, so it was strong out of the gate. Zaslav described it as a turning point, and after DC had spent over a decade chasing Marvel, it felt like things were finally changing. He talked about a bold 10-year plan. Cut to 18 months later, and everything is in pieces.

We can argue all day about whether Superman was a hit, but the only perspective that matters is how the studio feels. Batman v Superman made $874 million. If you got that in the current market you'd be popping the champagne, yet internally the studio thought it was a disappointment, and that started the domino effect that led here. Reading this report, Superman felt like a similar situation. While the fandom celebrated, Warner Bros. didn't. The report says it didn't create the sustained cultural impact required to launch an interconnected franchise.

Supergirl as the test and Clayface's $19 million

Supergirl gives a real measure of whether Superman could sustain a universe. Superman was laced through its marketing, and that didn't translate to ticket sales. However popular Superman was, it didn't make people see the next movie featuring Superman. The report says executives didn't think Superman's ticket sales led to a sustained universe, and that Supergirl was the defining test of the foundation.

The report then says Clayface earned $19 million against a comparatively modest $44 million budget. While lower costs improved the optics, sources indicate it wouldn't reach true profitability until downstream revenue such as home entertainment, streaming and international licensing. If you're investing tens of millions into a film, you want more than a small return, or you might as well play roulette. The report says this led to an uneven strategy, with the studio wondering whether there was any way to make a real profit when it was investing hundreds of millions.

Why executives wanted Batman: my Bucky O'Hare test

Insiders also questioned the emphasis on lesser-known characters, which I think many DCU critics raised right at the start, and which was one of the reasons I was worried about the DCU. There's a finite amount of time and money. A studio could spend two years making a Supergirl or Clayface movie, but an executive will look at that and ask why that time and money isn't going into Batman.

People push back because we've had Batman movies for 30 years, and I do think there's an argument for giving other characters the spotlight. But to be objective, put yourself in a Hollywood executive's mind with a franchise you don't care about. Say we bought the Bucky O'Hare franchise from the 80s for billions and gambled on a shared universe. We hire Taika Waititi, and instead of a Bucky O'Hare movie he makes an A.F.C. Blinky movie. We give him millions, and it bombs. We ask when the Bucky O'Hare movie is coming, and he says he's making a Mimi LaFloo TV show. You'd tell him to make Bucky O'Hare.

That's what has been done with DC. I doubt any Paramount executive cares enough about DC to think Gorilla Grodd is a good idea, because I'm a DC fan and I think it's a bad idea.

Marvel's model and Variety's quote on budgets

I think the studio likely looked at Marvel too, who are probably going to have two $2 billion movies this year by going with safe bets. It's clear Marvel's model still reigns. After the Vision Quest post-credits scene, I saw that the AMC app crashed because people were buying tickets for Avengers: Doomsday, and I imagine the DC boardroom looks like the Paul Allen business card scene in American Psycho.

I've seen the argument that Kevin Feige wouldn't have got past The Incredible Hulk by today's standards, but in 2008 there were no expectations of a shared universe.

One executive apparently told Variety: "The industry has taken away the wrong lessons from Marvel's success. Higher budgets don't equal quality storytelling." So they felt money was being burned on projects that didn't have the best writing. That comes after Gunn said scripts would only be greenlit if the writing was great. I won't beat a dead horse, but there's definitely a movie I can think of that didn't have the best script.

Lanterns, Peacemaker and The Penguin on TV

The report calls the TV results mixed. The strongest small screen success during this period was The Penguin, which it says was greenlit before Gunn and Safran took control. Gunn's own Peacemaker generated considerable interest initially, but the second season failed to recapture the same attention. Lanterns, the first live action series developed under the new leadership, averaged 19 million global viewers per episode.

This is where I think the hit piece side comes out. Like it or hate it, I think Lanterns performed well going off the public figures. Insiders told Variety the drama hadn't fully captured the cultural conversation and noted a second season hadn't been greenlit. With no renewal and sources saying it's cancelled, I think that spells the end.

What this means for Man of Tomorrow and The Batman Part II

I have a theory about why they're announcing this now and not after Man of Tomorrow. In his current position, Gunn basically has say over the final cut, and because of that he wouldn't really be changing much. My theory is that doing this now allows Paramount to order reshoots, give notes and steer the movie where they want. The report says Gunn is working on his Man of Tomorrow script, but that the decision now lies with his replacement. The article seems to be propping up the new hire's reputation, describing him as the kind of guy who would go to Comic-Con to get an autograph rather than sign them. That's another reason I think the article came from Paramount.

The report also notes The Batman Part II is set to release six years after the first film after multiple delays. I think that's probably over if Robert Pattinson is auditioning for Bond, and I doubt the studio wants to be tied to a Batman that confuses general audiences when they want to launch their own.

I think this move is going to kill Man of Tomorrow. When Gunn announced his reboot, it hurt Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, The Flash and Aquaman 2, as people weren't interested. I think this will likely affect Man of Tomorrow's box office, and if it does, the studio will be less likely to continue in Gunn's direction.

Why I think another DC reboot is coming

Can DC survive another reboot? I don't know how many I've got left in me. I'm 38. I think they've burned through a lot of fan goodwill in 10 years, while Marvel has at least kept things consistent. I think another reboot could kill fan interest completely. But I think the writing is on the wall. Gunn and Safran have been pushed out, and they're probably not making Lanterns season 2.

The studio is acting like someone who takes a day to text back: if they were interested, they'd reply right away. You can convince yourself the DCU will continue, but the studio has removed the heads, is putting out hit pieces, and has hired someone else.

I think they probably need a hard reboot, which Gunn should have done in the first place. He kept around friends and family who'd been in other projects and picked what to carry forward, to the point of needing a podcast about canon. None of that was popular enough to justify continuing, and it was tied to a universe of bomb after bomb. I think the same is true now: the DCU isn't popular enough, and it makes no sense to reboot and still keep the DCU's Superman and Supergirl around.

I don't know that general audiences care much about quick reboots anyway. We all saw what they did with Spider-Man 3, then The Amazing Spider-Man reboot shortly after, then a new Spider-Man two years after that franchise was killed off. You could even argue the gap between Corenswet and Cavill and Black Adam was really short, and I don't know how much that affected things. We also had Ben Affleck's Batman followed quickly by Pattinson. They could even build up to a crisis that brings back older actors, or merge the universes, though that would be a mess.

This report came from inside the house. If my new boss was putting this in the press, I don't know that I'd be happy going back either. Personally, I hope they take a couple of years off, restrategize, and come back with the trinity, new actors and a hard reboot.