The Fate Of James Gunn’s DCU Decided After Paramount Merger

As the Paramount merger with WB closes, we know what’s going to happen with James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU going forward.

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Big changes are about to happen at Warner Bros. as the Paramount merger closes. The $110 billion deal is supposed to be finalized on Oct. 6, and arriving with it are some big exits, but also some notable retentions. Namely, that James Gunn and Peter Safran will be staying, meaning the current DCU and its future plans are intact.

Two people not staying, according to multiple reports, are WB heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, who will likely be replaced with Paramount film heads Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg in the David Ellison administration. It’s certainly a bit of a surprise, given that WB has had a great run with the likes of Sinners, Weapons, One Battle After Another and A Minecraft movie, films that either did big box office, had big awards showings, or both. Though there have obviously been some high-profile misses lately, like the disastrous Supergirl.

Matt Beloni’s Puck News reports that despite that recent DCU down note, universe overlords James Gunn and Peter Safran will stay. At least for now. After Supergirl, the DCU is now riding high again with the huge success of Lanterns on HBO Max, and next year will welcome the promising return of Gunn in the director’s chair for Man of Tomorrow, a Superman sequel. A Clayface movie is about to arrive this month, but with a drastically lower budget than other DC films, it doesn’t have a high bar to meet to be considered a success.

Even if the highest higher-ups at Warner Bros. are leaving, it would make little sense to boot out Gunn and Safran and scrap the DCU at this point, which is still just getting off the ground with big projects. The alternative for the second-biggest superhero brand on the market is what, exactly? Starting over again 2-3 years after the last reboot? While the DCU may need to rethink some of its plans, which is already happening, there are no logical alternatives. There are some (a very small but very loud minority) hoping this transition means that Zack Snyder could return to keep his “Snyderverse” going, though there is effectively zero chance of that happening, and a back and forth between the DCEU, DCU and DCEU again (plus side projects like The Batman) would be totally ridiculous.

WB previously highlighted a number of its biggest media properties that it was banking on the most. That includes DC, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and Mortal Kombat. We just covered the DCU. Harry Potter has a new HBO Max show coming that will no doubt be a blockbuster, regardless of quality. Game of Thrones has indefinite Knight of the Seven Kingdoms seasons planned, House of the Dragon will end next season, and a theatrical Aegon’s Conquest film is coming. Mortal Kombat just had a movie sequel, and well, it probably is nowhere close to the level of these others. But the point stands, huge WB assets are now under the watch of Paramount, and upsetting the cart would likely be a terrible idea at this point.

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