James Gunn and Peter Safran’s abrupt departures following the Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. have left the DCU back in reboot-land all over again, and there is no shortage of rumors about why. A lot of ink has been spilled over the theory that the two were ousted in part because of allegedly poor test screenings for Man of Tomorrow that left incoming executives scrambling to make last-minute changes to the upcoming Superman blockbuster.
“One contributing rumor is that the studio was less than enthusiastic with how ‘Man of Tomorrow’ was shaping up, and now wants to edit out a lot of Gunn’s Easter-egg ephemera,” read a speculative analysis published by Variety this week. This prompted Gunn to return to social media following his initial statement on his departure and attempt to shutdown the rumor mill.
“There are a lot of untrue rumors going around, but one of them is that Skydance has seen Man of Tomorrow and that all sorts of sweeping changes are being made,” he posted on Threads on November 13. “No one from Skydance has even seen the movie – the only people that have are Peter Safran and a very small trusted group of friends and family. So any stories around this narrative are false.”
Despite no longer being in charge of the broader direction of the DCU, Gunn previously suggested his time on Warner Bros. comic book movies hasn’t completely wrapped up yet. “That’s not to say Peter and I are immediately done with DC or superheroes,” he posted earlier in the month. “We have Man of Tomorrow out this summer. And we’ve just been engaged on another DC project which I’m writing, and we’ll see where it goes after that. And, of course, the characters we set up will live on.”
But other reports have claimed that incoming boss David Ellison, who engineered the Warner Bros. takeover thanks to massive investments by Saudi Arabia backstopped by his dad, is impatient to get the Justice League back together again and move forward with a rebooted vision for DC’s comic book universe. Former Superman actor Henry Cavill has already made it clear he’d be happy to return.
One thing seems clear: there was some sort of messy power struggle inside the DCU amid the merger with Paramount and its probably only going to get messier in the years ahead.
