James Gunn and Peter Safran step down as DC Studios CEOs

James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of DC Studios effective December 1, following the corporate restructuring of the Skydance and Paramount takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. According to TMZ, the pair won't be running the studio as executives anymore, though they're sticking around to finish their active creative projects.

The move comes as a surprise. When Paramount and Skydance finalized the merger in early October, the initial executive lineup kept Gunn and Safran in their co-chair positions, reporting directly to Skydance CEO David Ellison. Most observers assumed they had survived the corporate shakeup intact, especially after 2025's Superman brought in $618 million worldwide and October's low-budget horror entry Clayface cleared $109 million on a $40 million budget. A rough summer for Supergirl, which pulled in just $126.5 million against a $170 million budget, may have complicated the math for the new brass.

From Walter Hamada to the Skydance era

Before Gunn and Safran took over in late 2022, the division was known as DC Films and went through years of management turnover. Warner Bros. Originally formed DC Films in 2016 under producer Jon Berg and comic writer Geoff Johns to course-correct the DC Extended Universe after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Following the troubled 2017 release of Justice League, Walter Hamada stepped in as president of DC Films in January 2018.

Hamada spent four years trying to untangle the continuity before departing in October 2022 during the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Gunn and Safran were hired immediately afterward to replace him and rebrand the division as DC Studios, pitching a unified continuity across movies, animation, television, and video games. It's a little ironic that their four-year run ends the exact same way it started: on the wrong side of a massive parent-company merger.

Jeremy Latcham takes the wheel

Former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham is replacing the duo as president and chief creative officer of DC Studios starting December 1. Rather than reporting directly to David Ellison as Gunn and Safran briefly did, Latcham will report to Skydance Motion Picture Group co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein.

Latcham spent over a decade at Marvel Studios, rising to senior vice president of production and development under Kevin Feige. His credits there include Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. He also served as an executive producer on 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, meaning he and Gunn already have a long working history. After leaving Marvel in 2017 to form his own production company, Latcham produced the 2018 thriller Bad Times at the El Royale and the 2023 fantasy comedy Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

What Gunn is doing next

In a statement posted to social media, Gunn admitted that the past four years were trying and that he disliked the corporate nature of the job, crediting Safran for absorbing the brunt of the boardroom politics. Stepping away from the C-suite lets him return to full-time writing and directing. He's currently in post-production on his Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, which is scheduled for July 9, 2027, and says he has already been engaged to write another DC project. He and Safran will also remain credited producers on projects already in the pipeline, including Matt Reeves's The Batman Part II.

Once his remaining obligations wrap up, he'll be a free agent again. On the off chance he ever returns to game writing, it would be quite the follow-up to 2012's Lollipop Chainsaw, the cult hack-and-slash game he co-wrote with Goichi "Suda51" Suda and Grasshopper Manufacture. Mostly, though, I hope this frees Gunn up to make more Guardians of the Galaxy. I'd love to see what he'd do with a movie built around the new roster led by Rocket Raccoon, with Adam Warlock and Kitty Pryde (or even Phyla-Vell and Cosmo) rounding out the team.