Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav revealed last month that he had tapped Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and producer Peter Safran to lead DC’s film, TV, and animation division. New comments shared by the duo during a virtual town hall with Zaslav that took place yesterday have revealed that both have already begun working on an “eight- to 10-year plan” to help make DC more like Marvel Studios, a company that has rose in prominence thanks to the efforts of executives that include President and CCO Kevin Feige. DC will now focus on telling a single story, according to Safran, hinting at more solo films with a reduced emphasis on complex mash-ups such as Justice League, while the “bible for a cohesive DC universe” that is reportedly being worked on suggests that future DC video games from Warner Bros will also be closely connected.
“This was such a unique opportunity to tell one great overarching story”, said Safran, who produced Shazam! and Aquaman. “One beautiful big story across film, television gaming, live-action, and animation.”
“The opportunity to make DC as great as it can be and as it should be — that is the reason why I’m doing this job because I know that Peter and I can do that,” said Gunn. “We spent the past couple days with a group of some of the best thinkers in the industry, the best writers in the industry starting to map out that eight- to 10-year plan of what it’s going to look like in theater, in TV, in animation, across the board for these characters.”
From The Hollywood Reporter:
For months, Zaslav has said he wanted leaders to help DC become more like Marvel Studios, which is home to the most successful film franchise in history, one known for its overarching storylines such as the Infinity Saga. At the town hall, Safran emphasized that DC will focus on telling a single story.
Gunn noted that he and Safran have begun work on a long-term plan for that story.
Gunn and Safran will report directly to Zaslav, who this week told investors he has spent a lot of time with the duo over the past few months. They replace Walter Hamada, who departed as DC Films president last month after holding the post for four years. The search for new leaders to run DC was long and closely watched, with the ascension of Gunn, a top filmmaker, coming as a surprise.
From a Deadline report:
The execs expressed their shared excitement for the new structure, with Zaslav mentioning how the plan is to build a bible for a cohesive DC universe, one that is overarching across live-action films, TV, animation, gaming and more.
While Gunn and Safran didn’t mention anything about new projects, the former said he has a penchant for such DC superheroes as Metal Men and Bat-mite.
Discussion (7 replies)
Join Discussion →I hope this will be a new golden age of movies. MCU has grown stale, generic and mass produced, too much agenda, too little story, too little suspense, and no stakes because "OMG She's awesome"
Spider-Man: No Way Home was awesome, and possibly the best of all the marvel movies. Series wise, moon Knight and she hulk were also awesome. Overall, I’d say That the MCU is stronger on the series side right now, but the movies have managed the same range of “ok to good” that they have had since Iron Man.
Spider man is not strictly marvel. I've heard a lot about she hulk, all bad mind you. I heard a little less about moonknight but that was all bad also. Frankly I have not seen anyone outside of the paid shillsphere praise either. What makes you think they are awesome? What is awesome about either?
She-Hulk was a more light hearted spin on a “marvel series meets lawyer show”. In general I enjoy lawyer shows that stick to “Case of the week” and don’t get drug down too far into serious drama - ex, a show like Suites without the “he doesn’t have a degree” drama. She-Hulk Delivered on case of the week stuff, and didn't too serious on the multi episode story arch. It also stuck with the She-Hulks power in the comics to break the 4th wall (ex, when she escapes to an ad page in the comics), which I enjoyed and I wasn't sure they would carry that over into the show.
Moon Knight was nice in that it didn’t get wrapped too far into the larger marvel universe and it was pretty much stand alone. "are you an Egyption Super Hero" was about the only in universe nod to other super heros existing. I appreciated how they handled the split personality portion, and the Egyptian themes hit well ( at least as someone who loved Egyptian mythology in elementary school and then hasn’t thought about since). I enjoyed the characterization of Khonshu and liked how he kept interjecting amusingly in the earlier episodes. Finally, the Kaiju fight was good without getting silly and it didn’t take over, just fit nicely .
Edit to say I'm neither a critic nor a reviewer. I come into these shows / movies, watch them, and say "was that fun, and was it self coherent?". I know some people come in with an agenda "ex: I'm going to hate this because its a female lead", but that just isn't me.
We enjoyed both but more so with Moon Knight. I've been a fan of the character since the 70s-80-s but hadn't really kept up with it since after the 90s. We both really hope they do a 2nd season and loved the casting and just about everything with the show.
She-Hulk, well, we enjoyed it but more ups and downs. Almost stopped watching on a few occasions but decided to stick with it. The thing is the comic book series was quirky in itself and the series did try to capture that. Just not exactly my cup of tea though. I can't say I really liked the last episode but there was something similar to that in the comic books as well. I've got a friend who is a diehard fan and he'd let me read them back in the day which is how I know but that was in the 90s. I know that many will want to get on the agenda hype-train for being against this show but I can say it pretty much mirrored a lot of what was done nearly 30 years ago. There were changes made, of course, but the overall feeling is the same. A shame they didn't get into the story where a Hugh Hefner/Larry Flint type got some pics of her and printed them. That was a funny issue.
I'd agree that the comic book series was quirky and they were pretty successful capturing that. I'd certainly say that if you don't / didn't like the She-Hulk comics, then you probably weren't going to like the show. In the end, I'd say that's probably a good thing too, because it means they stayed true to the source material.
Everyone is a critic, except those who unironically call themselves critics think their opinion is better than everybody else's. Kind of like how modern female leads are written to be better than men in everything, instantly, without having to go through a learning curve. SheHulk is just as guilty of this as any other modern female led show. IE.: She is instantly better than Bruce Banner at everything, and saves him even before becoming she-hulk. It just makes no sense, and gives an air of fakeness to her whole character.
And I love female leads, as long as they are presenting as female, ie. not written to mimic male behaviors and mannerisms. Because modern writers are pathological repressed sexists. They think the only way a woman can beat a man is if they act like men. This has made me completely cynical and jaded of almost all modern entertainment. Because they cannot present a compelling feminine character. And that doesn't mean damsel in distress, not even close. It just means the male characters sole purpose shouldn't be being her punching bags. The occasional jab is OK, but don't present all men as imbeciles to make your dumb female lead look better.
Of course the central issue is that the writers themselves are dumb, with zero experience, so they are not able to write a clever character. I really blame the companies who keeps hiring these agenda driven incompetent creators.