DC Studios is changing leadership again. James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as co-chairmen and co-CEOs of the studio, four years after they were hired to rebuild DC’s films and television shows. The news, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety on Monday, was announced by Skydance Motion Picture Group, and the change takes effect on December 1.
Their replacement is a familiar face from the other side of the superhero business. Jeremy Latcham, a former senior executive at Marvel Studios, will become president and chief creative officer of DC Studios. Gunn confirmed the news himself in a post on Threads, calling the job a “dream come true” but also “trying, to say the least.”
A Marvel veteran takes the keys
Latcham spent years at Marvel Studios as a senior vice president of production and development. He worked on early Marvel hits such as Iron Man and The Avengers, and he worked with Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy. At DC Studios he will oversee the film, television and animation slate, including production, talent and strategy, and he will report to Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, the co-chairs of Skydance Motion Picture Group.
Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and co-CEO Ynon Kreiz thanked the outgoing pair in a statement, saying Gunn and Safran “launched a new era for DC Studios” and built a slate the company is proud of. Skydance said the two men will stay on through the handover to help ensure a smooth transition before Latcham takes over on December 1.
Why the change is happening now
The shake-up comes weeks after Skydance closed its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on October 6, the deal that put DC Studios under new owners. The move still surprised many in Hollywood, because Gunn said in October that Ellison wanted to continue with the plans he and Safran had laid out for DC.
In his Threads post, Gunn pointed to the job itself. He wrote that he disliked the corporate side of running a studio and splitting his time between the projects he loved and the duties of a studio head. He said he is “incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking,” and Skydance framed the change the same way, as the pair returning to full-time creative work.
Four years that rebooted DC
Warner Bros. hired Gunn and Safran in 2022, after a run of expensive disappointments that included the 2017 film Justice League. The pair relaunched DC’s screen output as one shared world, the DC Universe. It opened with the animated series Creature Commandos in 2024 and reached theaters with Superman in 2025. That film, directed by Gunn and starring David Corenswet, earned strong reviews and grossed more than $600 million worldwide.
The record since then has been mixed. Supergirl, released in June, drew mixed reviews and flopped at the box office. Clayface, a dark horror entry released on October 23, has grossed more than $100 million on a reported $44 million budget. On television, shows such as The Penguin, Peacemaker and Lanterns were all well received. The pair leave with a slate that is started, but nowhere near finished.
What happens to the movies already in the pipeline
Fans do not have to wonder about the next Superman film. Man of Tomorrow, the sequel Gunn directed, is now in post-production and is set for release on July 9, 2027, with Corenswet back in the lead role. Gunn also said he is writing another DC project, though he did not name it. Gunn and Safran will also remain producers on The Batman: Part II, the Robert Pattinson sequel due in 2028.
Beyond that, the future is less certain. Gunn had discussed plans for a Batman film called The Brave and the Bold and a new Wonder Woman film, and a Jimmy Olsen series has already been filmed. Latcham will decide which of these projects go forward, and his first choices will show whether this is simply a change of management or a change of direction for the whole DC Universe. Follow the story as it develops in our Entertainment coverage.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter and Variety reporting, carried by USA Today; Animation World Network; Fast Company; Polygon.