New details about James Gunn and Peter Safran's ousting from DC Studios continue to be revealed. This time, Bleeding Cool has shared some fascinating insights into the dynamic between the studio and DC Comics.
While Gunn has waxed lyrical about his comic book fandom, it sounds like that didn't extend to working with Jim Lee, the Publisher, President, and CCO of DC Comics. According to the site, Lee felt that he'd "felt stymied or frozen out by them at DC Studios."
While the DC Comics structure is completely different from that of Marvel Studios (which now incorporates Marvel Comics), comic book creators have, in the past, had some input on DC Comics adaptations. In contrast, Gunn created his own writers' room, tapping one prolific comic book scribe, Tom King, for Lanterns and the upcoming Mister Miracle TV series.
Interestingly, it sounds like Lee was so unhappy, he started mulling over a potential exit from DC Comics. However, the report reveals that the prolific writer and artist "has very much welcomed the news of Jeremy Latcham's appointment."
Yesterday, Skydance also announced a series of layoffs, though the news was buried by Gunn and Safran's DC Studios exit. There was no mention of anyone at DC Comics being offered a voluntary layoff package, and there's a pretty bizarre reason for that:
"The reason given to me is that DC Comics is simply outperforming other Warner Bros. departments, is a profit centre for themselves just from the comics, as well as what it delivers to the rest of the company – but also no one can be entirely sure exactly what everyone does at DC, and the risk of losing someone and the exponential ripples it might cause was considered not worth triggering. Not yet, anyway. It is very possible that Absolute Batman saved a lot of jobs at the comics publisher this week, because no one wants to kill that golden batgoose."
It does rather feel like all the reports coming out are painting Gunn in a negative light, and given how much of a presence he typically has on social media, he may decide to bite back in the coming weeks.
While the filmmaker and executive made some major missteps while building the DCU, Skydance was expected to clean house after the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Despite that, multiple outlets have confirmed that Gunn and Safran were left blindsided by the decision to fire them.
Ultimately, their vision for the DCU neither aligned with executives nor audiences, so the pressure will be on Jeremy Latcham to get the heavy hitters in theaters and develop movies that sell tickets and make Skydance money. At the same time, making fans happy will be crucial, as there was a lot about the DCU that did strike a chord with them.