Skydance Pushed Out James Gunn Because $618 Million Superman Lacked 'Impact'
Gunn and Peter Safran will leave DC Studios on Dec. 1. The reported reason: a hit Superman movie didn't have enough pop culture impact for the new owners.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
Skydance, which now owns Warner Bros. Discovery and therefore DC Studios, told James Gunn and Peter Safran on Friday, Nov. 6, that there had been a change of plans. The co-heads of DC Studios will step down Dec. 1, and former Marvel executive Jeremy Latcham is taking over. According to The Hollywood Reporter's account, Skydance didn't think Supergirl had worked, and it wasn't impressed with Superman, either, which made $618 million worldwide on a reported $225 million budget but, in the new owners' eyes, didn't net out or have the pop culture impact a movie like that should.
Pop culture impact. I want to sit with that phrase the way you'd sit with a man at a bar who just told you he invented golf. Superman, in 2025, was a movie you couldn't open a phone without seeing. People argued about the dog. Then again, if you're a studio, a movie has 'impact' the way a car crash has impact: you only notice it after the insurance numbers come in. The Mary Sue noticed the same thing, that when a studio says impact, it usually means return.
None of this is official. Skydance hasn't laid out its reasoning publicly; these are insiders and trade reports, the usual way Hollywood announces anything it would be embarrassed to sign. Other reported complaints: Gunn and Safran were slow to share future plans and footage with the Skydance team. You can understand the frustration. You buy a whole studio and the man running the superheroes won't show you the trailer.
Gunn, for those keeping score, has been fired by bigger companies than this. Disney let him go in 2018 over old jokes on Twitter and hired him back the following year, after which he made another Guardians of the Galaxy movie and walked across the street to run DC. Most of us get fired once and update the résumé. Gunn gets fired the way other men get haircuts.
The truth is that every new owner wants to rearrange the furniture, and the easiest furniture to move is the guy who got there before you. It's the oldest law in show business, older than the casting couch and only slightly cleaner. When you buy the store, you fire the manager, even if the store was doing fine. Especially if it was doing fine, since nobody will thank you for keeping it that way.