DC Studios’ Leadership Change Creates 3 Major Concerns About the DCU’s Future

The entertainment industry was shaken up in a big way today when it was announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as the co-heads of DC Studios, following Warner Bros.’ merger with Skydance. That announcement comes just weeks after it was looking like Gunn and Safran were on board with the new Skydance leadership, and the DC Universe franchise was marching forward confidently toward the next phase of its release slate.

Now DC Studios has a new leader in former Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham. Latcham is no stranger to building comic book cinematic universes: he helped get the Marvel Cinematic Universe to greatness as a producer on the first Iron Man and Avengers films; then he helped get Spider-Man into the MCU by producing Spider-Man: Homecoming. He’s also worked with Gunn before, as a producer on Guardians of the Galaxy. But even with an experienced executive at the helm, this transition in the DC Studios leadership creates at least three immediate problems that will hurt the DCU brand as it tries to move into its next phase.

3. This Forces A Whole New Start (Whether They Admit It Or Not)

This will be at least the third time I’ve personally covered DC/Warner Bros. imploding during an active period of developing the franchise, and changing leadership and direction. So far, there’s only public discourse about the first part, but make no mistake, the second part is just as relevant.

Gunn and Safran’s exit inherently signals that there is going to be a change in the direction of the DCU – otherwise, why would they be exiting? It’s not even hard to predict what the changes will be: Skydance executives probably aren’t going to support decisions like Gorilla Grodd and Jimmy Olsen getting their own TV series before a Batman movie hits the screen. But the deeper reality is this: Gunn (and to a lesser extent, Safran) had a unique creative vision and franchise plan that is no longer going to be in play. After Man of Tomorrow, there will be a whole new flavor of DCU that we get – and now, it’s hard to keep faith that the Superman sequel will even end up being the film Gunn intended, and not a forced finale to his (small) arc within the DCU saga.

2. The Stars Are Hanging In Limbo

It’s now no secret that when Warner Bros. started to waffle on Zack Snyder’s DCEU franchise in the 2010s, some of the biggest casualties of that indecision were the cast of Justice League stars that Snyder had gathered together. That included Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Jason Momoa, all actors who either were big stars or were on the cusp of breaking through to that level of stardom.

James Gunn was working from a similar playbook as Snyder, signing actors like David Corenswet (Superman), Aaron Pierre (Green Lantern/John Stewart), and Milly Alcock (Kara Zor-El/Supergirl) to major roles, while bringing in veterans like Jason Momoa (Lobo) and Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner) to help bolster things. Now those actors, plus supporting stars like Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane) NIcholas Hoult (Lex Luthor), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Fank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.), David Harbour (Eric Frankenstein), not to mention a handful of actors preparing for their DCU debut (Adria Arjona), are all hanging in limbo. They were convinced to jump on board with the vision James Gunn and Peter Safran had in mind, and now that vision is dead, to be replaced with something yet to be determined. It could work out well for the actors (higher-profile projects, sooner), but history tells us that it may not.

1. There Won’t Be Any Unique Brand Identity

Say what you will be James Gunn or his “Gunnverse,” but when something in the DCU hit, it hit in a very unique way. Looking over Jeremy Latcham’s resume, it’s clear that Skydance wants him to bring the MCU formula to the DCU, in the hope of creating a similar kind of franchise that will simply be populated with DC characters and lore. But that’s a “course correction” that’s been tried before, and it failed.

The last time DC shocked us this much with an executive exit, it was Zack Snyder getting pulled off of his Justice League movie and replaced by Avengers director Joss Whedon. The results of that movie were undeniable: Whedon’s version of Justice League brought the franchise to a grinding halt, and eventually compelled Warner Bros. to reconcile with Snyder and let him make Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which was largely an apology project to appease both the fans and the director. Latcham coming on board feels like a direct repeat of that history; under this kind of leadership, would a project like Lanterns ever make it to the screen? Because if the plan for DC TV now is to mimic what Marvel has done? We say no thanks. Whether it was Snyder or Gunn (or Nolan, Donner, Burton, and even Schumacher before them), DC has always found ciematic greatness in the unique creator visions that drive it.

What do you want to see next from the DCU? Let us know in the comments!