A new report has added a level of uncertainty to James Gunn's DCU future amid ongoing Warner Bros. (WB) conversations. Even though Gunn's new interconnected DC canon is off to a blazing start with the release of Superman, Peacemaker, and Creature Commandos, nothing regarding the franchise is certain, as Warner heads to the open market, looking for a new owner.
While some bidders have reportedly guaranteed Gunn's new DC franchise would not be affected by the new ownership search, one can never be too sure in circumstances such as this. Gunn himself has acknowledged this, discussing the insecurity that the overall entertainment industry can bring.
According to a new report from Puck, James Gunn and his DC Studios co-lead Peter Safran may not have the autonomy that they seem to have if the purchase of WB goes a certain way.
In the latest entry of the outlet's What I'm Hearing newsletter, it was reported that Weapons director Zach Cregger, who previously teased having an idea for a DCU movie, has met with Paramount Skydance CIO and chair Josh Greenstein about making the movie happen.
What's curious is that Paramount does not manage the DC portfolio in any way at this point; however, the studio is reportedly one of the leading bidders in the ongoing Warner Bros. sweepstakes.
In her writing, Puck's Kim Masters posited that if a Paramount acquisition of Warner were to come to pass, Greenstein said he would love to make Cregger's DC movie happen. This would seemingly side-step the current DCU mandate of having everything go through Gunn and Safran, as, at present, they only greenlight specific projects with scripts to their liking.
This core tenet of the DCU has seemingly been what drew Gunn to the role as head of DC Studios in the first place, and could put his future with the franchise into question if WB's new ownership (whomever they may be) were to meddle with that.
Notably, fellow Warner pursuant Netflix publicly said it would maintain the status quo within the DCU, something Paramount may not. No frontrunner in the Warner Bros. sale has been named.
The Warner Bros. Sale Puts the DCU In a Precarious Place
The ongoing saga surrounding the WB purchase has put James Gunn and his DCU in a somewhat peculiar position.
One would hope that when starting a new storytelling endeavor as vast and ambitious as something like the DCU, the corporate foundation beneath it would be solid. For DC Studios and the DCU, that could not be further from the truth.
A Warner Bros. sale throws a level of uncertainty into the DCU equation that simply should not be there this early on in its life. Gunn and his creative brain trust should not be worrying about who their new boss may be when they are actively laying the groundwork for what could be the next decade of DC storytelling.
And yes, some of these Warner bidders have come out saying Gunn and the DCU will remain untouched if they are successful, but saying that is one thing, and acting upon it is another.
Sports fans see this sort of thing all the time. A new owner comes in, spouting that nothing will change, only for the coach to be fired and the star player traded not too long after. These kinds of billionaire business folk often like to install their own guy or gal as a way of making their presence felt on the thing they just purchased.
If there is one thing Gunn seems to hate, it is corporate meddling. He has been clear, the DCU is a creative-driven enterprise, all stemming from having a filmmaker like Gunn himself at the top. If Warner's new ownership oversteps their bounds, Gunn would not put up with it for long.
