With DC Films no more since its restructuring and rebranding as DC Studios, the brand’s universe now has leadership that has a singular vision for where it will go that is to the liking of Warner Discovery’s big boss David Zaslav.
New division heads James Gunn and Peter Safran were appointed with the hope they will do a better job than Walter Hamada and, understanding comic books a little better, they’d know how to prudently craft a shared universe to rival Marvel’s.
It is a task very much like Kevin Feige’s over there at Disney which is exactly what Zaslav wants to emulate. For months, he’s been looking for a Feige-quality figure to run DC and may have gone as far as making the man himself an offer.
Above the Line writer Neil Turitz claims in his report that Zaslav actually reached out to Feige during his search but the Marvel mogul declined, politely.
Had things turned out differently, Feige might have jumped to DC years ago over frustrations with Disney executive Ike Perlmutter. Luckily, for them anyway, they smoothed things over by giving him a promotion and the tensions died down.
That may be for the best when you look at the trajectory Marvel is currently on. Zaslav would have a disaster on his hands bigger than Disney and Marvel Studios’ critically panned She-Hulk had Feige agreed to work for him.
He dodged a bullet, that said, but Zaslav’s search dragged on with a couple of red herrings to show for it. Lego Movie producer Dan Lin looked like a shoo-in a few months ago but talks fizzled out shortly after he made a joke about Snyderverse Twitter bots.
Arrow producer Greg Berlanti seemed to have a chance briefly at promotion though that didn’t get far. It’s said he will continue to have a voice in the hierarchy at DC Studios even if his projects at The CW and HBO are being canceled or rearranged like Green Lantern.
Nonetheless, Gunn and Safran are in charge as of this month with a lot of work to do.