No Changes Planned for DC Studios Leadership Under Skydance

[ShawnDK]

James Gunn and Peter Safran will remain at the helm of DC Studios after Paramount completes its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, sources say.

The duo recently met with Skydance co-CEO David Ellison about their future, and the conversation reportedly went well. Under the new structure, Paramount and Warner Bros. film operations will report to Paramount Pictures co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein.

Gunn is currently shooting Man of Tomorrow, the sequel to Superman, for release July 9, 2027. His Superman grossed more than $618 million worldwide last year. DC’s upcoming slate also includes Clayface, opening October 23, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II, due February 18, 2028.

Meanwhile, HBO Max’s Lanterns has emerged as a ratings success. Its third episode drew 10 million global viewers in three days, including 7 million in the U.S., while the series’ premiere has surpassed 20 million worldwide.

Gunn and Safran were appointed to lead DC Studios in October 2022 as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav sought to build a centralized franchise operation modeled in part on Disney’s Marvel Studios.

Safran brought an established track record at Warner Bros. and New Line, producing the multibillion-dollar Conjuring franchise as well as DC films including Shazam! and Aquaman. He also produced Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and its HBO Max spinoff, Peacemaker.

[ransomz]

I'm glad they're sticking with the new DCU. There's a lot I like about it. I watched Supergirl to see if it was just a victim of misogyny but I found it lackluster, despite the sci-fi setting. The fight numbers looked very choreographed, the story was a bit trite. I'd just watched Mortal Kombat 2 and it also told the story of a vengeful girl whose parents and family were killed by a warlord criminal. Supergirl's growth arc felt scripted. I mean it was scripted, but the whole thing was telegraphed and obvious. Regardless, I want to see where it's going. And please finish the Peacemaker dangling plot lines already.

[Jscott991]

It will be shareholders that will suffer most since Gunn's projects hemorrhage money while producing poor returns. 

I'm confident that neither DCU leader will be employed by Skydance on January 1, 2028.  The merger happened too late to affect a lot of what's coming out in the near term.  But it's all going to underperform and then be scuttled.  

[Satam]

I really shouldn't have to remind people here to be respectful of differing opinions as long as they aren't bigoted or something. You don't have to agree, but don't be nasty.
 

8 hours ago, Jscott991 said:

It will be shareholders that will suffer most since Gunn's projects hemorrhage money while producing poor returns. 

I'm confident that neither DCU leader will be employed by Skydance on January 1, 2028.  The merger happened too late to affect a lot of what's coming out in the near term.  But it's all going to underperform and then be scuttled.  

Only Supergirl and The Suicide Squad lost money in theaters, and The Suicide Squad was released at the height of the pandemic when people weren't going to theaters, and it was simultaneously released on HBO Max where it did well. Supergirl lost money because of poor reviews and word of mouth. And rightfully so. It's an extremely mediocre movie. The pacing is poor, the action is repetitive, the stakes are handled oddly, and the movie just wasn't exciting, despite good performances from the supporting cast. 
Gunn's Superman didn't make a billion dollars at the box office, but at $618,723,803 worldwide it apparently made $100 million profit, which even David Zaslav was happy with. Lanterns, Peacemaker, and even Creature Commandos have all been hits for HBO Max (Creature Commandos being only a "moderate hit" for the platform, but apparently a hit nonetheless).

[Jscott991]

1 hour ago, Satam said:

Gunn's Superman didn't make a billion dollars at the box office, but at $618,723,803 worldwide it apparently made $100 million profit, which even David Zaslav was happy with. Lanterns, Peacemaker, and even Creature Commandos have all been hits for HBO Max (Creature Commandos being only a "moderate hit" for the platform, but apparently a hit nonetheless).

No need to debate this back and forth, but Superman's underperformance at the box office has been widely reported despite its decent-sounding gross number.

Netflix's CEO discussed this at a Senate hearing.  The actual deficit number is a source of speculation and depends on how theater cuts are defined.  Supergirl, of course, performed catastrophically. 

[Satam]

15 hours ago, Jscott991 said:

No need to debate this back and forth, but Superman's underperformance at the box office has been widely reported despite its decent-sounding gross number.

Netflix's CEO discussed this at a Senate hearing.  The actual deficit number is a source of speculation and depends on how theater cuts are defined.  Supergirl, of course, performed catastrophically. 

We can go back and forth. It's a discussion forum. I don't intend to break any rules here, do you?I'm fully aware of the whole theater split thing, and, yes, Superman underperformed. But that's not the same as "hemorhaging money," which really only applies to one....maybe two...out of six things. You don't have to like Gunn or "his projects," and I certainly don't like everything he's done with DC, but If you're gonna speak hyperbolically about the entire DCU so far, you should expect a little pushback.

[Jscott991]

58 minutes ago, Satam said:

We can go back and forth. It's a discussion forum. I don't intend to break any rules here, do you?I'm fully aware of the whole theater split thing, and, yes, Superman underperformed. But that's not the same as "hemorhaging money," which really only applies to one....maybe two...out of six things. You don't have to like Gunn or "his projects," and I certainly don't like everything he's done with DC, but If you're gonna speak hyperbolically about the entire DCU so far, you should expect a little pushback.

I'm not sure it is hyperbole.  Gunn has three major film projects.  Two might have lost as much $200M each (Suicide Squad and Supergirl).  They certainly lost at least $100M each.  Hemorrhaging money hardly seems like an exaggeration. Forbes estimates that Superman lost about $40M. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/10/06/james-gunns-superman-ends-its-theatrical-run-how-much-did-it-make/)  Now Forbes is doing a lot of complicated math there -- more than most people do when saying whether a film is profitable -- so maybe it's not an apples to apples comparison.  But Superman did not do as well as WB tried to argue. That became clear last year during the merger talks.  

You can say the streaming shows are making money. That's hard to prove.  It's also hard to disprove.  

I know the Snyder fans (and I hate the Snyderverse more than I hate Gunn's stuff) and other people complicate this discussion by making up a lot of anti-Gunn stuff.  But I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that Gunn has been a financial disappointment at WB.  I know he is keeping his job and that's more than many people predicted, but I think it's fair to wonder what would have happened had the merger closed on time before certain projects lurched forward. Anyway that's all speculation.

Gunn is getting a few more shots. If Superman 2 is a hit, then I'm sure all is forgiven at Skydance.  The chances of that seem relatively small and Clayface is already being projected to open south of Supergirl, so that's hardly a good sign.

My own opinion of Gunn is heavily influenced by him making a weird Supergirl movie that has made the character toxic. I don't know why I care so much since I didn't expect to enjoy Supergirl, but she is one of my favorite comic characters and I'd prefer to have the property handled better.

[Satam]

Again, The Suicide Squad is an odd case, as it lost money at the box office at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic when most people were avoiding theaters, and it was playing on HBO Max at the same time and was regarded as doing well on that platform (not sure how that translates monetarily-probably not $100 million, but like I said yesterday, even David Zaslav was pleased). Superman losing money seems to be a strangely questionable thing. The Forbes numbers do not appear to be apples to apples, and an article published a month later, also in Forbes questioned all of that (I won't provide a link, as it's paywalled). The movie either lost $42 million theatrically or it made $100 million theatrically, depending on the Forbes article (I won't link the one from later because it's paywalled). Assuming it did lose $42 million theatrically, and I won't say for sure that it didn't, WB seemed to be counting on the movie to make up for lost revenue or underperformance at the box office (either one) through VOD and streaming on HBO Max, and by all accounts it seems to have done that.
Clayface is tracking south of Supergirl, but it also cost a lot less to make and promote. It doesn't need to make hundreds of millions of dollars to be profitable. Time will tell if it is, though.
Lanterns reached 7 million viewers in the US in its first 3 days after the premiere. By the end of the series it was averaging around 12 million in the US and 19 million worldwide.
Peacemaker had a big premiere, fluctuated over its two season run, and then the season 2 finale did well enough to break into the Nielsen charts as the #10 rated original series episode that week with 319 million viewing minutes. Something like Cosmic Book News would argue those numbers aren't as good as Nielsen says, but it's also a bulls*** site.
Creature Commandos was apparently the third most watched series on HBO Max the week it premiered, and while I'm having trouble finding hard numbers, it seems estimates were at million views per episode on average, which is supposed to very good for adult animation on streaming platforms, especially at the time.
Your claim that "it's hard to prove" if streaming shows are making money is an outdated argument from three years ago. Analysts look at things like the viewer numbers and financial reports. In Q2 2026 Max pulled in $512 million, which was a ten percent increase over Q1. Third quarter reports have yet to be published but Lanterns was a big hit. If you want to try to argue that it somehow wasn't, you might as well try and fight a windmill with a lance.
So, as I said, "hemmoraging money" is hyberbole when applied across the entire DCU instead of just one or two out of six projects. I think the above proves it. It also shows that the series seem to be doing better than the movies on the whole, but it's also an apples to oranges thing a bit.
And like I said, I didn't like Supergirl, either. I also didn't like that Gunn tried to turn Task Force X into heroes in the last act of The Suicide Squad, although I do question how much of that was him and how much of that was a studio note (remember that he wasn't in charge at the time). I did like Superman quite a bit, as well as Peacemaker, and I liked Lanterns even more. I liked Creature Commandos up until the end, because Princess Ilana's scheme, revealed at the end, made zero sense logically and and even undermines or just flat out doesn't work with the events of the rest of the series. Whether he would have kept his job or not had the merger closed earlier, isn't something we can know for sure, but David Ellison and Gunn and Safran have repeatedly said over the course of the whole thing that there was no lack of confidence.