James Gunn and Peter Safran ousted as DC Studios chiefs; Marvel veteran to take over

Skydance has removed James Gunn and Peter Safran as the co-chairmen and co-chief executives of DC Studios, ending a four-year run in which the pair rebuilt the comic-book franchise around "Superman," and installed Jeremy Latcham, a longtime Marvel Studios executive, as the division's new president and chief creative officer, the company announced Monday.

The change, effective Dec. 1, is the first significant creative-leadership move at a Warner Bros. Discovery division since Skydance, led by David Ellison, completed its acquisition of the media company on Oct. 6. Gunn and Safran will leave their posts and return to producing and directing full time, according to the companies' joint statement.

A four-year run comes to a close

Gunn, a writer-director best known for "Guardians of the Galaxy," and Safran, a producer whose credits include "Aquaman" and "Shazam!," were installed as co-heads of the newly created DC Studios in November 2022, when the division was carved out of the former DC Films as part of Warner Bros. Discovery's post-merger restructuring. Gunn ran the creative side of the business; Safran oversaw production and operations, an arrangement that gave them unusual autonomy over which DC characters and storylines reached film and television.

Their tenure produced mixed commercial results. "Superman," the summer 2025 relaunch that Gunn wrote and directed, took in more than $618 million worldwide and was credited with restoring the character — and the broader DC slate — to commercial and critical relevance. But other recent releases underperformed, and some Skydance executives had privately questioned the pace at which Gunn and Safran briefed the new ownership on upcoming projects, according to trade reporting on the departures.

Skydance's first move on the DC franchise

The reshuffling comes just over a month after Skydance closed its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery and began installing its own leadership across the combined company's film, television and streaming units. Latcham will not report directly to Ellison and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz, as Gunn and Safran did under the old structure; instead, he reports to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, the co-chairs of Skydance's Motion Picture Group — a reporting line that folds DC Studios into Skydance's existing film operation rather than preserving it as a standalone unit.

"We're grateful for their passion, contributions and commitment to this legendary brand," Ellison and Kreiz said in a joint statement announcing the change.

Goldberg and Greenstein, in their own statement, said Latcham "brings a deep reverence for DC and its passionate fanbase." The framing — an emphasis on fan loyalty and franchise stewardship — signals a shift in how Skydance intends to run the unit compared with the Gunn-Safran era, during which the pair were given latitude to reshape DC's continuity from the ground up.

Who is Jeremy Latcham

Latcham spent 13 years at Marvel Studios, joining in 2004 and rising to senior vice president of production and development under Kevin Feige. He worked on "Iron Man," "The Avengers," "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Spider-Man: Homecoming" before leaving in 2017 to found his own production company, Latcham Pictures, whose credits include "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" and "Bad Times at the El Royale." His hiring places a second Marvel-trained executive in a senior position overseeing a DC property, a crossover that has drawn attention from comic-book press given the decades-long rivalry between the two franchises' fan bases.

"I am grateful to Dana and Josh for putting their trust in me," Latcham said in the companies' statement, adding that DC's characters carry "a major responsibility" to bring to the screen.

Who is affected, and what comes next

The immediate slate is not expected to change hands. Trade reporting indicates Gunn and Safran will stay on as producers and, in Gunn's case, director on the projects already in motion: "Man of Tomorrow," the Superman sequel Gunn wrote and directed, is in post-production for a 2027 theatrical release; "The Batman Part II," starring Robert Pattinson and directed by Matt Reeves, remains in production; and an eight-episode HBO Max series has completed filming for a 2027 release. Gunn and Safran are credited as producers or executive producers on all three.

Beyond those projects, the future of DC's broader television slate is less clear. Industry reporting, including from trade outlets tracking the transition, has suggested Skydance executives are reviewing several projects that were further along in development but had not yet begun production, though neither the company nor Latcham has confirmed any specific cancellations.

In their own statement, Gunn and Safran struck a note of pride rather than grievance, saying they were glad to return to storytelling full time, including finishing "Man of Tomorrow": "We're excited to return to what drew us to this job in the first place," the pair said.

A test for Skydance's new ownership

The timing has drawn scrutiny inside and outside the industry. Ellison had publicly praised Gunn and Safran's work as recently as last month, and the abruptness of the announcement — delivered less than six weeks after the Warner Bros. Discovery deal closed — has been read by some trade reporters, including The Comics Beat, as an early signal of how aggressively Skydance's leadership intends to consolidate creative control across the properties it inherited in the merger, rather than preserving the semi-autonomous structures that existed under Warner Bros. Discovery's prior management. For producers and studios with projects set up elsewhere inside the newly combined company, the move raises questions about how durable any assurances from the new ownership will prove to be.

Latcham's first public task will be managing that uncertainty while the properties he now oversees — among the most valuable in Hollywood — continue toward release dates set under his predecessors.