It’s no secret that DC has been in a pretty rough spot as of late. And by as of late, we mean for essentially the last decade. Ever since Marvel Studios started finding immense success with their cinematic universe of different superheroes and comic-book characters, DC has been trying to catch up. While there have certainly been wins along the way, on the whole, DC has been consistently failing to live up to the immense heights that the brand has the potential to reach. The series has been passed from one executive to the next behind the scenes, and across the board, DC has struggled with a dramatic identity crisis that has seeped into nearly everything it has produced.
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The hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran to be the new heads of DC Studios is a choice that will define the DC brand for the foreseeable future. The two have a history of working with the company, with Gunn having directed both 2021’s The Suicide Squad film and 2022’s spin-off Peacemeaker series. Safran worked with Gunn on both of those projects, in addition to being a producer on other DC flicks like Aquaman, Shazam! and their upcoming sequels. While that experience alone would at least qualify Gunn and Safran to be more deeply involved in DC, Gunn is most well-known for his work with the brand’s chief competition, Marvel. Gunn really made his name as a filmmaker for Marvel, having directed all the Guardians of the Galaxy films (including the Holiday Special) and generally being a key creative figure for the series behind-the-scenes for nearly a decade now.
As co-heads of DC Studios, Gunn will oversee most of the creative decisions, while Safran will largely focus on the business and production side of things. The two only entered their new positions with the legendary superhero company a few months ago, but already there has been a noticeable change in the franchise’s overall presence and interaction with fans. Though it is still to be seen how exactly Gunn and Safran will reshape the DC film continuity into the newly-titled DCU, things have already started to feel more stable for the franchise. After a long history of fan confusion and frustration with DC, here’s how Gunn and Safran’s leadership so far has proven to be a refreshing and necessary new direction.
DC’s History of Disappointment
Warner Bros.
When the Marvel Cinematic Universe really began to take shape in the early 2010s, Warner Bros and the executives at DC were set on doing the same with their cast of iconic characters. They had their first failed attempt to do this with 2011’s Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds, but things did eventually get off the ground in 2013 with the release of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill. While that new take on Superman was far from the most widely beloved version of the character, it did well enough to warrant a continuation. DC then put all its hopes on Snyder and began to build its cinematic universe around his vision for the character. While Snyder is a talented filmmaker who undoubtedly has earned a very vocal and dedicated fan base, the overall approach to the DC Extended Universe of films that he presented never quite clicked with audiences.
Many were disappointed with the first movie to follow-up Man of Steel in 2016, as Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was a very dense and convoluted take on the core DC characters. After that film failed to live up to expectations, both financially and in terms of quality, WB desperately tried to adjust. David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, set for release later that year, was re-edited to lighten the tone and create a film more akin to the MCU. The result was a film that was received even less well than Batman v. Superman. While Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman found the kind of success DC had hoped for in the summer of 2017, the overall DC film brand came toppling down with the release of Justice League later that year. That massive superhero team-up was meant to be DC’s biggest movie yet, and it ultimately crashed and burned as one of their least successful. This sent the franchise into a spiral. Any plans to continue the Justice League series were scrapped, and the focus was instead shifted to producing an array of vaguely connected standalone movies with pretty much no end goal in mind.
Over the years that followed, DC was able to find and produce a few hits with their individual films in this model. Aquaman was decently well-received and brought in a massive box office gross of over a billion dollars worldwide (DC’s biggest hit ever), while Shazam! was another generally successful follow-up. Birds of Prey felt like a random aside in the universe that never found an audience, and Wonder Woman 1984 was considered to be a significant step down from the first film. Even Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, as great as it was, failed to find success at the box office. The latest entry, Black Adam, despite promising big change, has fallen to the same unexciting fate. The DC brand has just been chugging along, with no clear direction or goal in mind for half a decade now. Different executives have come in and said they were planning a bright future for the series, but none of that has really come to fruition. It says a lot about the state of the DC’s cinematic universe when the most successful and praised films produced by DC as of late have been Joker and The Batman, the ones that are entirely disconnected from the rest of the franchise.
A New Captain Aboard
Throughout all of these rough waters, the one thing that has consistently been missing from DC is any sense of genuine leadership behind it all. While some of the films DC has produced were good, even great, on a couple of occasions, the overall lack of direction that permeats everything has been inescapable. Each new film felt produced almost at random, with no thought put into how it would develop the universe as a whole (looking at you, Birds of Prey and Black Adam). When the new ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery took over earlier this year; one of the first things CEO David Zaslav promised was a renewed focus on the DC brand and its characters. They wanted to build a 10-year plan for DC similar to that of the MCU, and they were actively looking to hire a new Kevin Feige-esque figure to spearhead that new initiative.
So, now that Gunn and Safran have taken that job, what makes them different from the myriad of DC head honchos that have come before? Well, the most obvious is that they (Gunn, in particular) already have an established relationship with this genre and its fans. Gunn is a trusted creative that has shown time and time again that he has immense respect for the source material and characters that he works with. Gunn has already made it clear, both in the stories he’s told and in how he talks about the brand, that he believes in the DC brand and its potential. Gunn, who is famously interactive on social media, has been very vocal with fans about his hopes for the DC brand and its stories moving forward. He has stated on multiple occasions that he and Safran have set out to tell one extensive story that weaves across different films, series and even video games.
With the hiring of this duo, DC has been put into the hands of creatives that have proven track records. Whether it be with Guardians of the Galaxy or The Suicide Squad, Gunn has a knack for crafting unique and entertaining stories that also have the mass appeal needed to be successful. He’s a trusted creative voice in the field of comic-book movies, and he wants DC to do so much more than churn out the same mid-level content that it has for the last few years. The biggest example so far of Gunn and Safran enacting this vision comes from their not giving the green light to Jenkins’ treatment for Wonder Woman 3. While little is known about what Jenkins’ idea for the third Wonder Woman was, reports have indicated that Gunn and Safran weren’t happy with the story and how it fit into their overall plans for DC. Instead of pushing ahead with it anyway for the sake of producing a third film in the series, they actually had the guts to say no.
Healing DC’s Relationship with Fans
Throughout the last decade, DC’s relationship with its fans has become increasingly tense, and the fan base itself has grown more and more divided. Whether it be the result of online movements like #ReleaseTheSnyderCut or the general lack of any public leader for DC fans to look to, DC fans have largely been frustrated and dissatisfied for years now. What the franchise needs is to be re-unified and refocused on telling the best stories possible. DC needs someone to come in, cut to the chase, trim the excess material, get the franchise’s ducks in a row, and be very transparent and honest with fans throughout that process. It’s a mountainous task, but it’s one that Gunn and Safran are willing to take on.
The biggest example so far of Gunn showing this kind of leadership is how he responded to the reports about Wonder Woman 3’s cancelation and a lot of the other recent speculation about the future of the DCU. Since Gunn is so active on Twitter, and he is frequently interacting with and replying to fans, it was sort of expected that he would give some sort of response to the reports. Instead of coming out and immediately denying or confirming it all, he was patient. He gave it 24 hours to let the clamor die down before he released a statement addressing everything. That thread can be found here. Broadly speaking, Gunn stated that some things were true and others weren’t. He said that he and Safran were well aware of the state DC is in and that they know their attempts to fix the brand won’t please everyone, but they are optimistic that they are doing what is best for the DC brand and its characters.
While the question of how exactly Gunn and Safran will restructure and remold the DC film and television universe is still to be answered, in these first few months as executives for the brand they have shown a passion and vigor for DC and its characters that hasn’t been felt from the suits behind the films in a while. As opposed to previous executives that have been in charge of DC’s films, it’s clear to see that Gunn and Safran genuinely love these characters and their stories. They are committed to telling the best stories they can and to seeing the new DCU finally reach the heights that DC should’ve been at long ago. On top of that, Gunn is actually interacting with the fans and doing his best to reassure everyone that the future is bright. Whether that future entails continuing with what has worked in the past or scrapping it all and starting anew, Gunn and Safran have made it clear that they are chiefly concerned with repairing the series’ reputation and building a universe that has the same kind of long-term stability that can be found at Marvel. Only time will tell if it will all actually work out, but, for now at least, DC fans can rest somewhat easier knowing that their favorite characters and stories are in good hands.
