Credit : Variety's X
LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2026 — James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as the co-heads of DC Studios after four years in charge, with Marvel Studios veteran Jeremy Latcham set to take over as president and chief creative officer on December 1, Variety reported and shared on X.
The move came as a surprise in Hollywood. Gunn and Safran had been named as part of David Ellison’s leadership team at the newly renamed Skydance after Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closed in October. The pair will now return full time to their creative work, including the next “Superman” film.
Four years of mixed results
Former Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive David Zaslav appointed Gunn and Safran in 2022 with a brief to build a true rival to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Their rebooted DC Universe opened with last summer’s “Superman”, a relative success that took $618 million worldwide, according to Variety.
The follow-up was harder going. July’s “Supergirl” earned $126 million on a $170 million budget, which Variety described as a massive bomb, while the darker, R-rated “Clayface” made a modest $109 million this autumn on a $44 million budget. On the small screen, the duo expanded DC on HBO Max with “Peacemaker” and “Lanterns”.
In a joint statement, Gunn and Safran said they had set out “to unite DC under one creative vision” and had “helped restore ‘Superman’ to the heart of DC”. They added that they were “excited to return to what drew us to this job in the first place, which is telling the stories we love, including the next chapter of Clark and Lex’s journey in ‘Man of Tomorrow.'”
Gunn was more candid in a separate social media post. “What only the closest people to me have known over the past four years is my time at DC Studios has been trying, to say the least. I dislike the at-times corporate nature of the job,” he wrote.
Who is Jeremy Latcham?
Latcham joined Marvel Studios in 2004 and rose to senior vice-president of production and development, working closely with Kevin Feige as the MCU was launched. He was an associate producer on “Iron Man” and an executive producer on “The Avengers”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. After leaving Marvel in 2017 he founded Latcham Pictures, which produced “Bad Times at the El Royale” and “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”.
At DC he will oversee film, television and animation, reporting to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, co-chairs of Skydance Motion Picture Group. “I’m excited and honored for the opportunity to now lead DC Studios into its next era,” Latcham said, calling the role “a massive responsibility that I do not take lightly”.
Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz thanked the outgoing pair for leading DC “through a period of real transformation” and said they had “complete confidence” in a smooth handover.
DC’s upcoming slate includes Gunn’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow” next summer, “The Batman: Part II” with Robert Pattinson in 2028, and the 2027 series “The People v. Gorilla Grodd”.
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