DC Studios Exit: James Gunn and Peter Safran Spent Big, Lost Money and Didn’t Hook Audiences

After “Superman” landed in theaters last summer, former Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was ready to pop Champagne. Although the movie had only been playing on the big screen for three days, he touted the “bold 10-year plan” of DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran and promised “the DC vision is clear” and “the momentum is real.” Fast forward a year and a half, and those plans have imploded. Gunn and Safran were dismissed from the top of the comic book empire, with Marvel Studios alum Jeremy Latcham taking over as president and chief creative officer of DC Studios. The duo’s ouster wasn’t a total shock, even though they had been assured they were part of David Ellison’s business leadership team at Skydance after Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of WBD closed in October. Had the two stayed, the org change would have represented a demotion. Under the previous regime, they answered directly to Zaslav and not movie co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy. However, Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz made plans to shift Gunn and Safran’s reporting structure into new Skydance Motion Picture Group chiefs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein. The executive shuffle is yet another setback for DC Studios, which has struggled for years to compete with Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Their short-lived leadership stint at DC follows multiple turnovers over the past decade, starting with comic book veterans Geoff Johns and Jon Berg and then Walter Hamada. After DC’s last iteration of superhero movies flamed out with duds like “The Flash” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” Gunn and Safran were hired in 2022 to overhaul some of the company’s most lucrative IP. Efforts to right the ship were mixed at best — with tentpoles and television shows that didn’t always generate enough excitement to justify their price tags. Sources suggest the thinking was they spent big — and lost too much — on projects that just weren’t resonating with audiences. Gunn’s “Superman,” starring David Corenswet — the duo’s first big swing as bosses — was touted as a hit with $618 million against a $225 million budget. Those ticket sales were promising enough, given the general decline in popularity of comic book movies. But they didn’t necessarily signal the kind of lasting enthusiasm that spawns an interconnected universe. Momentum all but evaporated with July’s money-loser “Supergirl,” which flopped with $126 million globally against a $170 million budget. And while October’s “Clayface” performed modestly with $109 million against a $44 million budget, sources suggest the body-horror thriller won’t break even until the studio factors in downstream revenues. Insiders have raised eyebrows at Gunn and Safran’s decision to focus on lesser-known characters, like Superman’s cousin Kara El-Zor, aka Supergirl, and the Batman villain Clayface, rather than building out the franchise with marquee names. Although superhero movies have been hit or miss, the ones that spotlight notable characters can still pack a box-office punch. July’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” became the third-biggest movie in history with $2.5 billion, and December’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which brings back just about all of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, could challenge the web-slinging Marvel sequel’s box office records. “The industry has taken away the wrong lessons from Marvel’s success,” a studio insider tells Variety. “Higher budgets don’t equal quality storytelling.” Television efforts, too, were mixed. DC’s main small-screen success was “The Penguin,” a “Batman” spinoff led by Colin Farrell, was greenlit before Gunn and Safran took over. But the rest of the slate has generated less fanfare. Gunn’s “Peacemaker” series, anchored by John Cena, debuted in 2022 before he stepped into the studio job. Although first season was popular, the second season – which launched three years later – failed to match the buzz of the original. And “Lanterns,” their first live-action TV show, posted decent viewership. Yet an insider at the company suggests the crime drama isn’t quite capturing the zeitgeist, pointing out the show didn’t get a second season. “People cannot wait to make another season of a hit show,” the source said. Safran, a steward of New Line’s wildly profitable “Conjuring” universe and producer on “Shazam!” and “Aquaman,” was used to cutting checks and poring over balance sheets. However Gunn, best known for directing Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, was always a curious choice for the job. Gunn had a tricky balancing act, needing to shepherd his own directorial efforts while co-managing a slate. Collaborators praised Gunn’s ability to work quickly and efficiently on simultaneous projects. But even he admitted the challenge of needing to multitask and handle the “corporate” nature of the job. “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,” Gunn wrote on X after his ouster. The pair will remain involved with DC, though with less authority. Gunn is directing next summer’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow,” and the two are producing the 2027 television series “The People v. Gorilla Grodd,” with Skyler Gisondo as his “Superman” character Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Tatro as Gorilla Grodd, and another season of “Creature Commandos.” It’s unclear what will become of Gunn and Safran’s decade-long creative strategy of sequels, spinoffs and stand-alone stories. After “Superman: Man of Tomorrow,” which brings Corenswet’s Man of Steel and Nicholas Hoult’s supervillain Lex Luther back to the forefront, the only other project in the pipeline is “The Batman Part II.” After several delays, the sequel is scheduled to be released in 2028 — six years after Robert Pattinson’s original Caped Crusader adventure. Their oft-teased “Wonder Woman” reboot never got off the ground. And though Gunn has hinted he’s writing another DC-related project, it’ll be up to Latcham to decide whether to continue with the vision of the prior regime. Internally, there’s hope that Latcham — an executive who helped shape the MCU — will get back to basics with DC. “Jeremy is the kind of guy who would go to Comic-Con to get an autograph from someone,” says another source, “not someone who wants to be there signing autographs.”