James Gunn found out he was losing DC Studios the way you find out a meeting is serious — the bosses showed up in person. Skydance chief David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz walked into Gunn and Peter Safran’s Burbank offices on Friday, November 6, and told the two men who have run DC for four years that they were done. The exit takes effect December 1.
Here is the part worth rewinding. In October — weeks before that office visit — Gunn told The Hollywood Reporter that Ellison “said he wanted to continue on with what we were doing.” Their staying on was reported as confirmed on October 2. But follow-up reporting says the change had been in the works since early fall, and that Skydance’s Josh Greenstein had already reached out to Jeremy Latcham, the former Marvel executive who now takes over as president and chief creative officer. The assurance and the replacement search ran at the same time.
Watch: E! News on the exit — Gunn and Safran out, a Marvel veteran in.
Latcham is not a name pulled from a search firm’s long list. He executive-produced Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, back when both men were Marvel people. DC’s next chapter will be run by a producer from the rival studio’s golden age — hired while the incumbents were still being told their jobs were safe. No current photograph of Latcham exists in the press pool; the man has kept a low profile for a decade, which may be the point.
The official language called it a step-down, and Skydance thanked the pair for restoring “Superman to the heart of DC.” The numbers underneath are colder. Superman grossed $618.7 million worldwide on a $225 million budget — a hit by gross, though inside Skydance the feeling was that it did not net out after that budget. Supergirl flopped in June. Clayface, out October 23, has passed $103 million on a budget reported around $40 million — solid, not salvation.
Gunn’s own statement, posted to Threads on November 9, did not read like a man negotiating. He called the co-CEO job “trying, to say the least,” said he disliked “the at-times corporate nature of the job,” and said he is “incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking.” Man of Tomorrow, the Superman follow-up he directed, still comes — he stays a filmmaker at the studio that just removed him from the corner office. Puck reports plans are already afoot to dismantle much of the slate he and Safran plotted out.
Four years ago Gunn and Safran arrived as the fix — one voice for DC, no more dueling visions. They leave having been publicly reassured by the new owner in the same season he was lining up their replacement. The step-down framing is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and everybody in Burbank can see it.
Sources · 4 sources
- USA Today — “James Gunn, Peter Safran out at DC Studios” (November 9, 2026): the exit effective December 1, Jeremy Latcham’s appointment, the November 6 Burbank office visit, and Gunn’s response.
- ScreenRant — reporting on The Hollywood Reporter and Variety’s coverage (November 9, 2026): the early-fall timeline, Greenstein’s outreach to Latcham, and the October assurance — Gunn’s October THR interview and the October 2 confirmation that the pair were staying.
- Puck — reporting that plans are afoot to dismantle much of the slate Gunn and Safran plotted out.
- The Ringer — “Clayface Is and Isn’t in a Cinematic Universe” (October 26, 2026): the box-office frame — Superman’s $618.7 million worldwide against its $225 million budget, and Clayface’s low-budget run.
