UPDATE 9/29: The Snyder side of the board grows, as insiders say The Dark Knight Returns is now being looked at as a two-part event movie.
Step back from this week’s reports and look at the board.
David Ellison’s incoming DC has Zack Snyder, Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson, and possibly Christopher Nolan on it.
James Gunn isn’t on it. And that’s on Gunn.
The Dream Team
Our insiders say Zack Snyder is returning for the SnyderVerse and The Dark Knight Returns, a movie that’s already storyboarded and built for IMAX.
Our Paramount insider says Ellison is going all in on Batman, going big with Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson, and Reeves just re-upped his Warner Bros. TV deal.
Ellison wants DC television as big as Spider-Man, the whole audience, not a prestige sliver.
For scale: Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened to $927 million worldwide, more in one weekend than every James Gunn DC movie combined.
And as of yesterday morning, Christopher Nolan could be on board, a free agent with no studio contract, running the guild that backs the merger, at a studio furiously mending fences.
Nolan Picked Snyder Once Before
Here’s the history the dream team runs on.
Following The Dark Knight Rises, it was Nolan who chose Zack Snyder to take over DC. Nolan godfathered Man of Steel, and as we’ve been told, it was his call to hand the universe to Snyder.
And per our insiders, guess who also wanted DC back then? Matt Reeves.
Prior to Affleck coming on board, we exclusively reported back in 2012 that a Batman movie titled The Batman was in the works for 2016, with Batman in his second year of being a hero. Sound familiar?
Reeves eventually got his shot. When Ben Affleck stepped away from his solo movie — also titled The Batman — Reeves took over and went with the exact same approach a decade later.
Two Batmen, Side By Side
Now, according to what we’re told, Matt Reeves’ Batman universe will continue to move forward side by side with the SnyderVerse.
The SnyderVerse carries a heavy international fanbase and Saudi backing.
Zack is supposed to do The Dark Knight Returns first, with Henry Cavill back as Superman and Ben Affleck back as Batman. Gal Gadot is also on board for the SnyderVerse return.
The two directors who both wanted DC after Nolan stepped back end up running Batman universes next to each other, under the same owner.
The Flash Ending That Never Happened
Which brings us to how James Gunn got the job.
The Flash shot an ending that brought back the SnyderVerse — Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman — before it was scrapped under the new regime for the George Clooney gag. That’s not all, as the real ending led to a Batman Multiverse.
That’s exactly what David Ellison is doing under the new DC at Paramount-WBD led by Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy.
Per our insiders, Gunn was also in talks for a Superman movie at the time and had David Zaslav’s ear.
Zaslav didn’t want to spend anymore. He wanted DC cheaper — cheaper talent, cheaper bets — to dress the company up for a sale.
It’s unknown if Gunn knew a sale was coming. But everybody in Hollywood knew one was.
The Discovery merger came with a two-year clock before WBD could be sold again, and the name everyone circled was Comcast, the home of Universal.
Instead, Paramount Skydance and the Ellisons stepped in, backed by their Middle East partners and the Trump administration, and won the bid.
Gunn Blew It
Now to Gunn, who took over DC with Peter Safran in late 2022.
True, per our insiders, he had restrictions placed on him, and still does.
But within them, Gunn chose, in a mind-blowing decision, to take his DCU in the same direction that destroyed Marvel after Endgame and Star Wars.
And the timing makes it worse.
Gunn had the opportunity to take DC to levels not seen since Nolan’s run, with Marvel at its lowest point ever.
Fans looked at Gunn as the next Kevin Feige.
Instead, Gunn stabbed those fans in the back the same way Marvel and Star Wars did.
The evidence speaks for itself.
The first-look Grodd set images and video have made the DCU a laughingstock, a practical gorilla suit walking around Atlanta dancing, singing, and making jokes.
It follows the backlash around Lanterns, which our insiders say Paramount is well aware of.
Supergirl mega-bombed, again, our insiders say Paramount is well aware.
Peacemaker lost nearly 40% of its audience.
International fans rejected Gunn’s Superman.
And Creature Commandos — the start and launch of Gunn’s DCU — never charted on Nielsen.
Gunn had the chance to show everybody what he could do with DC and comic book characters. He blew it.
He could have stood on the same level as Nolan, Snyder, and Reeves.
Instead? His DCU will be forgotten along with the likes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Acolyte, Eternals, The Marvels, et al.
2027 Does The Firing
According to our insiders, Gunn’s contract expires next year, and he won’t be renewed, Safran either.
No firings needed. The calendar handles it.
Maybe Gunn knew it all along.
Maybe that’s why he went the divisive route, as Disney fired him at Marvel all those years ago, and he never forgot, and this is his payback.
Either way, the dream team is forming without him.
