James Gunn spent the summer thinking about the future.
Three months before the surprise announcement Tuesday that he and veteran director-turned-producer Peter Safran will take over at DC Films, the director appeared at July’s San Diego Comic-Con as a Disney employee, in town for a first look at the sequel “Watchmen.” The Galaxy: Vol. 3. “As he walked the red carpet, diverse There he asked him about expanding his specialty in Marvel superheroes beyond the adventures of the galactic company Chris Pratt.
“All I care about is that when I do a project, I have to say, this is something that will excite me and make me happy for the next two or three years… I don’t want to be bored,” Gann said.
Boredom will no longer be an option as Gunn and Safran now hold the titles of co-chairs and CEO of DC Studios, as they will control the creative direction of the company’s arsenal of villains and heroes in comic books across film, TV and livestream. Animation and beyond. The job is huge and success is far from assured despite Gunn and Safran’s impressive biographies. The two will have to find new ways to compete with Marvel, the studio that propelled Gunn to the A-list and created the gold standard of the cinematic universes, while also finding ways to control costs at a time when Warner Bros., the parent company of DC. Discovery, increasingly focused on staying on budget.
Many Hollywood players diverse I spoke with heralded the decision as “bold” on the part of David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, who made it clear he wanted nothing less than his own answer to Marvel mentor Kevin Feige. In Gunn, he found a renegade (and at one time incendiary) filmmaker steeped in nerd culture and demonstrated a penchant for coloring outside the lines without alienating mainstream audiences.
“If Marvel proves anything, you need someone with fan pieces and product pieces. That’s what it looks like they’re here, for the first time, in DC,” said one influencer, speaking anonymously. Safran and Gunn will both report to Zaslav, known as a demanding manager with little difficulty digging into the finer details.
Conversations with Gunn and Safran began over the summer, according to insiders, and overlapped with discussions the studio had with prolific producer Dan Lin. Jean and Safran now rank among some of the most powerful personalities in Hollywood. Although the couple’s compensation package is currently unknown, industry insiders have predicted that a job of this size would require a package of $6 million to $8 million each in salary and incentives.
In Safran, DC gets a friendly CEO with the charm and tact needed to navigate the corporate world. One of the top talent representatives, Safran, described him as “elegant,” who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and “as solid as oak.” Raised in the UK and educated as a lawyer before landing an assistant desk at the United Talent Agency, Safran spent years driving at management firm Brillstein-Gray (during that store’s heyday, when clients included Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston). He cut his teeth building the world of James Wan’s “The Conjuring,” which became one of Warners’ highest-grossing franchises, and then showed he could handle super tent poles by producing “Shazam!” and “Aquaman”. Gunn and Safran worked together on The Suicide Squad, which was a huge hit, but failed at the box office — although many attribute this to the studio’s decision to release it simultaneously on HBO Max. The pair had huge success with “Peacemaker,” a spin-off series that demonstrated a kind of multi-platform approach, one in which films fueled streaming shows and vice versa, which Zaslav was keen to see more of in the studio.
But Zaslav and his comrades will need patience. The two men start business on November 1, but it takes months or even years to build a roster. They will inherit oversight of many projects left by the former regime of Walter Hamadeh, the DC’s beloved CEO who left Zaslav “Batgirl” shelved in favor of a tax write-off, and Toby Emmerich, the former Warner Bros. president. . These include the film “The Flash,” which has been packaged, and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which is currently in post-production. Michael De Luca, who pushed for Gunn’s hiring and made introductions for Zaslav, according to insiders, and Pamela Abdy, the new heads of the Warner Bros. film set. , the green-lit “Joker: Folie à Deux,” but this movie would exist outside of any cinematic realm that Jean and Safran would build. There’s also a sequel to The Batman on deck, but writer-director Matt Reeves hasn’t submitted a definitive screenplay yet, so the movie won’t be released in theaters until 2025 at the earliest. There are also lingering questions about what to do with Man of Steel, with Chuck Roven’s Superman sequel currently ordering from the book. Henry Cavill recently announced that he intends to wear the Superman robe again.
So what does this mean for John and Safran? Several top CEOs and deal makers said they were curious to see how the next filmmakers would view Gunn, a bold and distinctive voice who will now cut through audits and into the editing rooms.
One producer said, “Imagine if Todd Phillips was going to see the Joker movie tomorrow, would he want to work for James Gunn?” Other players familiar with the studio said that the given scenario is the ideal setting where Safran would be most effective, and speculated that De Luca and Abdi could be important ambassadors. Under a four-year agreement, DC can still get Gunn behind the camera. The agreement only means that he will no longer be able to take his own set of skills across the street in Burbank to Marvel.
Gunn’s hire aloud also indicates that Zaslav is willing to bet on style more than four quarters of safety. Gunn’s voice is an obvious adult face, never afraid of ridicule or meta. After all, “The Suicide Squad” ended with the team electrocuting a giant sea star – a transition to the seemingly far removed Rococo of Thanos and his endless criticism.
Gunn rose to prominence as a maker of subversive genre films such as “Slither” and “Super,” films made with a rebellious voice, and films made outside the creative constraints of blockbuster business. But with “Guardians of the Galaxy,” he also showed a knack for retaining some of that flavor while catering to a giant company that needed to make movies that spawn game lines and amusement rides.
Not everything was so smooth in space. After all, Gunn was kicked out of the “Guardians” franchise in 2018, after a backlash to social media messages in which the director highlighted children’s tendencies, AIDS patients, the Holocaust, and sexual abuse. Alan Horn himself, an industry-loving statesman who ironically now advises Zaslav and Warner Brothers Discovery, denounced John’s jokes as “indefensible and at odds with the values of our studio”. Gunn apologized, and spent his time in Disney prison making “The Suicide Squad” for DC Films. In 2019, Gunn was reinstated as director of the third “Guardians” movie after statements of support from major talents such as Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Karen Gillan and Pom Klementieff. Those who knew him said he was touched by the experience and grateful to give him a second chance.
Ultimately, Gunn and Safran will be judged by their ability to continue introducing new heroes, while keeping the old ones. But for now, at least, Gunn and Safran are winners, having come out of one of the most often-watched auditions for the job in recent Hollywood history with the keys to the DC kingdom.
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