James Gunn and Peter Safran are staying put. As Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery heads toward its expected close on Tuesday, October 6, the DC Studios co-CEOs will be invited to remain in their roles at the newly combined company, according to reporting from Puck's Matthew Belloni, via Deadline.
The news resolves one of the biggest open questions hanging over the mega-merger. Gunn and Safran have run DC Studios since November 2022, architecting the new DC Universe from the ground up, and every twist in the months-long acquisition saga revived the same question: would the new owners keep the people building the DCU?
The answer comes with a clear contrast to the rest of the Warner Bros. leadership. Belloni reports that Warner Bros. film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy are on their way out of the merged company, with Paramount film heads Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein expected to oversee both movie studios. Gunn and Safran, meanwhile, are the notable survivors, set to report to Goldberg and Greenstein once the deal closes.
The retention tracks with earlier signals. In August, an insider told TheWrap that Paramount had no plans to replace the pair, and Bloomberg reported last year that Paramount CEO David Ellison wanted to keep the creative teams of both studios intact. Gunn himself appeared to signal optimism this week, sharing the video Ellison posted heralding the new era of the combined company, which will be called Skydance.
The caveat matters. Belloni's reporting says the invitation is to stay on "at least initially," and all parties have declined to comment. Gunn's contract is reportedly set to expire in 2027, after next summer's "Man of Tomorrow." That film is shaping up as the real referendum on the DCU: "Superman" earned roughly $618 million worldwide, but "Supergirl" stumbled badly this year, and the studio is banking on the buzz around HBO's "Lanterns" and the upcoming "Clayface" to steady the ship.
For now, though, the message from the new Skydance is continuity for DC. The architects of the DCU get to keep building.
James Gunn by Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.