Rumor: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Ordered James Gunn To Stack ‘Superman: Legacy’ With More DC Characters To Lure Potential Buyers
JB Augustine
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Superman: Legacy, we now know, is going to be another loaded DC epic and not just another Superman movie. However, it may come as no surprise that this was not always going to be the case. Allegedly, the writer and director James Gunn was originally out to craft a simpler story until he received orders from on high to throw more characters into the script.
Superman (Henry Cavill) immediately regrets snapping the neck of General Zod (Michael Shannon) in Man of Steel (20130, Warner Bros. Pictures
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YouTuber Syl Abdul hears that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO and Gunn’s boss David Zaslav is pushing for all the extra heroes and accouterments with an agenda in mind. “James Gunn originally aimed for [Superman: Legacy] to be simply a superman story, and it still is BUT the inclusion of this already full DC world backdrop seems to have been pushed by Zaslav,” Abdul tweeted.
“This film is zaslav’s way of ‘showcasing’ the DC world to [a] potential buyer,” he continued. This last sentence will ring some bells for our readers who may recall a sale of DC was predicted years ago. Artist Ethan Van Sciver, a former employee, was the first — or one forerunner at least — to proffer the idea that WB might cut bait with the publisher.
@sylabdul claims David Zaslav pushed for the inclusion of more DC characters in Superman: Legacy via Twitter
To be fair, Van Sciver has been saying that since AT&T was the principal owner of Warner and all their assets. Turning the ship around proved to be too insurmountable a task for the communications giant so WarnerMedia merged with Discovery. This merger by itself didn’t fix their problems and, instead, left Zaslav with a heap of debt to deal with.
On conference calls, the CEO pledged the mission was to get the cash flowing at the company again. With releases such as The Flash bombing epically, it’s an uphill battle not going in the studio’s favor, but all the same, Zaslav found ways to prune the debt and benefit from tax loopholes. Batgirl is the starkest instance though it’s one of many.
Batgirl (America Young) says goodbye to her father in Gotham Knights (2022), Warner Bros. Montreal
The feeling of some insiders is that Zaslav is wending through all this chaos to prep his WBD entity for yet another merger, even though he was adamant about the idea. In September of last year Zaslav declared, “We are not for sale, absolutely, not for sale.”
Disney was considered a buyer at one point, which would put DC under the same roof as Marvel, but Abdul thinks the candidate is Comcast/NBCUniversal. Either way, Zaslav wants to market the breadth of IPs strongly.
In a follow-up video, Abdul added that Zaslav’s orders apply to Superman: Legacy and Brave and the Bold, which is a full-blown Bat-Family movie. WBD is still adjusting its strategy and the “consultants” are over Gunn’s shoulder. However, they might leave the dirty work of world-building up to Universal after the supposed sale. We shall see how this situation develops.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav via CNBC Make It
Do you see another merger coming? Will it hurt the DCU reboot? Tell us your prediction below.
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