James Gunn, Peter Safran to Stay at DC Studios as Brand Takes Key Position at Skydance

When David Ellison unveiled Skydance as the new (but old) name for the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. media entity Friday morning, he showed off a snazzy video reel with clips of movies and shows from both companies, set to the Hans Zimmer score from Inception.

The video end with a constellation of eight brand logos surrounding the Skydance name. And at the top tier, above Skydance, were the Paramount mountain, the Warners shield, and … the round DC bullet.

The appearance of DC in the constellation is as strong a Bat-signal as you can have as to the importance of DC, both the studio and the publisher, to the new company.

More importantly, according to several insiders, in the midst of a shakeout that is seeing executives stay or exiting, DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran are staying put. At least for the foreseeable future.

Multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the duo met with Ellison in person Thursday and that the meeting was positive. The pair were asked to stay and “keep doing what you’re doing,” per one source.

But it’s unclear how the two heads, and DC in general, fit into the organizational structure of Skydance. It is unknown to whom Gunn and Safran would report, whether it would be straight to Ellison or if it would be layered underneath Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, the current Paramount film heads who are expected to oversee both film studios, while current Warner film chiefs, Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, are being shown the door. (At Warner Bros. Discovery, Gunn and Safran reported directly to CEO David Zaslav.)

At this point, it is known that Ellison is supportive of Gunn and Safran and wants them to continue leading. The general consensus is they should at least see through the releases of the movies that are either completed or in post-production, namely the upcoming horror thriller Clayface (Oct. 23), and the especially Man of Tomorrow, the big-budget Superman sequel that opens July 2027. In a show of support, Ellison visited the Atlanta set of that movie over the summer.

No one want to a repeat of the situation that occurred with the 2023 releases of The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, two movies made by one studio regime and opened by another, and which were left dangling in the wind. Both underperformed at the box office.

That said, the executives’ fortunes could turn swiftly turn. Abdy and DeLuca are examples of that.

As one studio insider notes, De Luca and Abdy “were led to believe they would still be here post-merger.” Adds this person: “They met with David months ago and felt secure. Clearly a lot has changed since then.”

The DC logo appearance is also good news for DC Comics, which in the last two years has seen an turnaround in which the publisher has overtaken sales and marketshare from rival Marvel Comics for the first time in decades. That is thanks to the new Absolute Universe imprint and a focus on rebuilding creator relationships.

In the past several years, there have been blips of rumors that Warner Bros. Discovery wanted to sell off the division, which WBD head David Zaslav never did. The likelihood of that is even less now. “It’s an IP generator,” says one source with knowledge of the workings of DC and comics world.

It does, however, suggest DC could potentially put out comics based on Paramount-owned IP, such as Star Trek and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“I can see why Skydance would combine Nickelodeon with Cartoon Network,” says the source. “DC? They’re not touching that.”