UPDATE 9/9: Matt Reeves re-upped his Warner Bros. TV overall deal, keeping the studio’s Batman television pipeline in place.
David Ellison’s DC wants television that plays as big as Spider-Man.
Not as big as an HBO show.
That’s the picture painted by the longtime source behind today’s report that HBO Max could be gone and Casey Bloys out after the Paramount merger.
What The Insider Said
The source laid out why HBO’s approach to DC is the problem.
“Bloys was too adamant about upholding HBO’s brand of controversial prestige TV, which is too limiting for something like DC, which needs to expand to general audience, family-friendly material that can reach Spider-Man numbers,” said the source.
“Lanterns had to fit that HBO model, and James Gunn loves shock value, boundary-pushing fringe storytelling — right in his wheelhouse,” the source added.
It’s the TV half of a plan our sources already laid out on the film side: “Ellison is GOING ALL IN on Batman to bring people back to DC.”
Creature Commandos Never Charted On Nielsen
Start with the first DCU show ever released.
Creature Commandos never charted on Nielsen’s weekly streaming top 10. Not once.
The show later ended up on YouTube for free.
Peacemaker Lost Nearly 40% Of Its Audience
Peacemaker Season 2 opened up 22% on the Season 1 finale. By its own finale, the show had lost nearly 40% of that audience.
Samba TV had the Season 2 finale at 435,000 households over four days. The Season 1 finale did 584,000.
The season spent nearly its entire run off Nielsen’s weekly top 10, scraping in at No. 10 in finale week, and only by counting every episode of both seasons together.
There is no Season 3.
Even Lanterns Is Half A House Of The Dragon
Lanterns is the best case, and that’s the point.
The premiere drew 9.3 million viewers worldwide in three days, the biggest launch ever for a DC Studios show on HBO Max, and one of the top five premieres on the platform overall.
House of the Dragon Season 3 opened to 21.5 million in the same three-day window this summer.
DC’s biggest show debuted to less than half of HBO’s own fantasy series.
Episode 3 hit 10 million, a series high, and the pilot has passed 20 million. By HBO Max’s count, only House of the Dragon and The Last of Us have launched bigger.
That’s real growth. It’s also the ceiling the insider is describing: DC’s best result on television is an HBO-sized hit.
On Samba TV’s chart of what American households actually watch, Lanterns slid from No. 2 to No. 4 in week two while Reacher held No. 1.
And HBO still hasn’t ordered Season 2.
What’s Next Is A Half-Hour Gorilla Comedy
So what’s next for Gunn’s DC on television?
The People v. Gorilla Grodd, an eight-episode series HBO’s own press release calls a half-hour comedy.
Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen reopens the case of a superintelligent ape, played by Jimmy Tatro, convicted of murdering his father and eating his brain. It’s shooting in Atlanta now.
Back in July, our insiders described the project as a “superhero Spinal Tap“ — and a facade, visible development activity while the DCU’s big guns sit idle.
It’s the show that got the greenlight while Waller and Paradise Lost died in development and Lanterns still had no Season 2.
Thirty minutes of gorilla mockumentary per episode is exactly the “goofy stuff” our sources say won’t be happening under Ellison.
Spider-Man Numbers
Here’s what the target actually looks like.
Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day is crossing $700 million domestic this week, per Deadline.
That’s more than James Gunn’s Superman made worldwide.
All of it waits on the close. Paramount says the merger is ready, and the next hearing is September 24.
Lanterns was built to fit HBO. The next DC show gets built to reach Spider-Man numbers.
