Rumors are flying on X that James Gunn and Peter Safran have already been fired from DC Studios.
So let me be clear about what my sources are actually telling me: No, they have not been fired. Yet.
The Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery deal hasn’t closed, and as of Monday, twelve states just sued to try to block it.
But I’m told that once this deal closes — and it will — it’s over: the Paramount board wants both of them out ASAP, their contracts will not be renewed, and — as one source puts it — there is blood in the water.
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It’s open season on Gunn and Safran, especially Gunn, and it’s coming from the top of WBD itself.
Before we get into it: Cosmic Book News publishes this as HBO Max and Warner Bros. Discovery entities carpet-bomb this site’s social media accounts — which reach upwards of 40 million+ views a month — with DMCA takedowns simply for discussing alleged Lanterns spoilers.
Our Facebook page is dark for 30 days, right through San Diego Comic-Con. Every takedown has been formally contested via counter-notification, and yes, attorneys are involved. The full rundown of the takedown campaign is below — because we’re publishing anyway.
The Receipts
Last October, I exclusively revealed that James Gunn would be out at DC Studios once the Paramount-WBD merger happened.
The usual access-media suspects rushed to “debunk” it, including “scooper” Jeff Sneider who declared the whole thing “simply doesn’t exist” and insisted the Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. had already fallen apart.
Following my report, Gunn himself ran to his shill YouTubers and Bloomberg in a desperate attempt to save his job. Then, in December, when Netflix briefly won the bidding war, the same crowd took victory laps: Gunn and Safran “locked in,” contracts extended into Spring 2027, nothing to see here.
Except Paramount came back and outbid Netflix at $110 billion. WBD shareholders approved the deal on April 23, and the deal — backed by a personal guarantee from Larry Ellison — was expected to close within weeks. Exactly as I told you. Check the receipts.
And about those contracts: Gunn and Safran got an extension after the Superman — or as one source calls it, “Domestic Man” — debacle, and The Hollywood Reporter noted just last week that the deals expire at the end of 2026 or the end of 2027. My sources say flatly: they will not be renewed. Bet your house on it.
Payback Time: De Luca and Abdy Take It All
Warner Bros. film co-heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy just got their contracts renewed. They are safe with the Ellisons coming in, and I’m told that once the merger closes, they get the whole thing — with DC under their complete umbrella.
Remember last year’s trade stories putting De Luca and Abdy “under fire” amid WB’s flops?
My sources say that campaign came out of DC Studios, the same playbook Geoff Johns ran back in the day, slipping rumors to the trades against Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan, and his own co-heads Diane Nelson and Greg Silverman.
And De Luca and Abdy know exactly where those stories came from. Now it’s payback time.
Recall that De Luca and Abdy already had a plan to salvage DC before Gunn torched it: Black Adam vs. Superman, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 3, and a Man of Steel 2 developed by Christopher McQuarrie and Henry Cavill that featured Green Lantern.
The original cuts of The Flash and Aquaman 2 featured Ben Affleck and pointed to the future, with Batgirl following The Flash and leading into Batman Beyond with Michael Keaton, and initial talks with Zack Snyder were about The Dark Knight Returns as the wrap-up to that universe.
Gunn scrapped the footage and oversaw the reshoots. Recall also what I told you about the real ending of The Flash under De Luca, nixed by Gunn and Safran because they had David Zaslav’s ear.
Once this deal closes, Zaslav won’t be running anything.
What comes next, per an outside source with connections to WBD: expect Gunn and Safran to “step down to focus on Man of Tomorrow” — the face-saving version — and find jobs elsewhere soon after Paramount takes over.
DC Studios as a standalone entity shuts down. No more “unified universe.” De Luca and Abdy oversee theatrical. HBO’s Casey Bloys oversees streaming. Animation and games get parceled out.
I’m further told De Luca and Abdy will organize the studio with in-house and outside production and post-production teams built to maximize the use of AI on tentpole films.
DC goes project by project: individual characters, possible team-up events, with universe-building allowed to happen organically — because DC simply doesn’t have the pipeline or the producer infrastructure to support a Marvel-style universe of films.
Gunn never had the support producers Kevin Feige has leaned on, like Louis D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso — veteran line producers with TV and effects experience.
Back in the day, Bryan Singer had Ralph Winter on the X-Men films. The lack of that infrastructure is exactly why Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs failed.
Notably, the new approach still leaves room for The Dark Knight Returns and a Zack Snyder Justice League movie done the way WB did Watchmen: a standalone film with a fully formed universe.
I’m told Disney is eyeing a similar plan for Star Wars.
Zack Snyder IG: “I feel like the number of f*cks I’m giving in this photo is very close to zero.” – November 7, 2025
Open for Business: Snyder, Affleck, McQuarrie, Jenkins
De Luca and Abdy are already taking BIG pitches.
I’m told Zack Snyder, Matt Reeves, Ben Affleck, Christopher McQuarrie, and Patty Jenkins have all been approached to submit specs and pitches.
As one source bluntly put it: no goofy stuff — real stuff, like Dark Knight, the SnyderVerse, and Wonder Woman.
That lines up with what I previously reported: Snyder has been approached about a SnyderVerse return, backed by his Saudi friends, the same money backing the Paramount-WBD deal.
And with directors around town sick to death of superhero movies, Snyder is one of only a handful — the Russo Brothers among them — who remain genuinely passionate about the genre AND have the award-winning teams and relationships to deliver a big superhero movie.
As for the current regime? One source put it bluntly: there is ZERO chance A-list or B-list directors line up to work for DC Studios as currently run.
You don’t think Reeves, Craig Gillespie, and Casey Bloys have told everyone in town what working with Gunn and Safran is like?
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The Reeves Rift — and Arkham Is Back
Here’s one that should raise eyebrows.
The narrative that Matt Reeves “took two years” to turn in The Batman Part II script? My sources say it’s backwards: Gunn delayed and delayed — and then had the nerve to offer notes. That went about as well as you’d expect.
Reeves, I’m told, decided to wait it out with De Luca’s full blessing. They want nothing to do with Gunn when the movie comes out. They want him gone and far away from it — from his “universe” and from his flops.
And the Arkham Asylum series at HBO that Gunn killed? I’m told it’s back in play, and Reeves remains very much interested.
This also tracks with the CineSource X account’s claim that The Penguin Season 2 was supposed to be in full swing — with David Ellison reportedly pleased with Season 1’s numbers and on board to continue — before the season was put on ice by DCU executives, causing major issues between Gunn and Reeves.
I can’t independently verify that one, but it fits everything I’m hearing.
Which brings us to those Batman-in-Man of Tomorrow leaks. I’m hearing Gunn himself is the one putting them out to justify shoehorning Batman, or some sort of cameo, into the movie.
He can’t afford another failure, so he’s willing to gamble and burn Reeves in the process.
Man of Tomorrow: Winging It
When the initial cuts of Supergirl tested as a disaster — and yes, Warners screened a Gunn-Safran cut against a Craig Gillespie cut, exactly as I reported and as The Hollywood Reporter first confirmed — Gunn knew his time was short.
I have been told Gunn knew Supergirl was going to be a complete disaster, that he knew how bad the script was, and that’s a reason he pivoted away from the greater DCU — shelving The Authority — and went all-in on the Super Family: the one corner of the DCU he could control.
The turnaround on Man of Tomorrow was so fast that there was no time to put a proper production and art department together, which is why, I’m told, the costumes still look scrappy.
The script, I’m told, is “Frankensteined” together from previous ideas: Bryan Singer’s abandoned Superman Returns sequel with Brainiac, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel 2 Brainiac concepts, and elements of the Krypton TV series that David Goyer conceived as a Man of Steel spinoff (a show that, ironically, featured Lobo in two episodes).
Gunn is shooting it Marvel-style: a general outline, pre-vized action sequences built around a list of money shots, forced comedy, and manipulative emotional beats — a structure that lets him keep bolting on DC characters as a reaction to the Supergirl backlash.
What was originally a Superman sequel is now a mini-Justice League “Gang” movie.
Don’t be surprised if he pulls the same move he did at Marvel with Ego — using what he wants and daring the studio to object — now that he’s the one running the studio. And he’s fortunate to have AI now, so he won’t face the last-minute VFX fires Marvel became notorious for.
Even the Jimmy Olsen series, I’m told, was conceived as a facade, cheap proof that Gunn is “building the universe.” It’s a mockumentary-style investigative crime series; one person described it to me as “a superhero Spinal Tap.” (And don’t expect the Mister Miracle animated project — based on Tom King’s run, not Kirby’s — to lead to a live-action Darkseid.)
Sources describe Gunn with a reputation as the “class clown” who does his homework at the last minute and charms and BS’s his way to what he wants.
My sources note that there were limitations put on him, sure, but he never had a real plan and wasn’t smart enough to game the system. He has burned a lot of bridges with creatives, and word has gotten out. Not as toxic as Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio, I’m told, but close.
Supergirl: A Historic Bomb
Supergirl is performing as one of the worst comic book movies of all time. It’s being compared to Catwoman. It just lost 1,018 theaters. It sits at roughly $111 million worldwide and is heading for a finish around $130 million, below The Marvels‘ $206 million, the MCU’s lowest-grossing movie of all time.
Variety pegged the theatrical loss at $80 million to $120 million — and that math assumed a $200 million finish it now won’t come close to.
Word is out internationally about how badly Supergirl and DC have performed; recall that Gunn’s Superman underperformed internationally, too. It’s embarrassing for WB, and it has made Gunn and Safran the biggest losers of 2026.
Meanwhile, exactly as insiders have said, Michael just crossed $1 billion worldwide, the first biopic in history to do it. A film that resonates with the SnyderVerse approach: larger-than-life, epic, mythic characters that everyone loves. Audiences haven’t gone anywhere. They’re just done with what Gunn is selling.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison
The Lawsuit Lands — One Day After Ellison’s Nuke
And then, as I was finishing this article, it happened: California Attorney General Rob Bonta and eleven other state AGs filed an antitrust lawsuit Monday to block the merger, one day after Semafor reported that David Ellison’s inner circle has been urging him to pull Paramount’s headquarters, and roughly $30 billion in annual content spending, out of California if Bonta sued. Bonta sued anyway.
The states have asked Paramount and WBD not to close while the case plays out and say they’ll seek a restraining order if the companies refuse.
Here’s what should tell you everything: the DOJ already cleared this deal last month, along with regulators around the world. Twelve state AGs are now defying the federal government’s own antitrust review.
From what I am told, the states’ effort has nothing to do with what’s best for the business — it’s all about politics, as David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, are aligned with Donald Trump.
Paramount says it will fight, and Ellison is not messing around anymore, as Paramount already signed a 10-year lease on production space in New Jersey.
The lawsuit only delays the inevitable.
The Takedown Campaign
Now, about those DMCA takedowns. As all of this has unfolded, HBO Max and WBD’s “content protection” operations have fired takedown notices at Cosmic Book News accounts across X, YouTube, and Facebook — not for posting footage, but for discussing alleged Lanterns spoilers, including the Hal Jordan Episode 1 leak and even a meme.
The result: CBN’s Facebook page and its 666,000 followers are restricted for 30 days — through August 11 — right through Comic-Con.
We have contested every single takedown via counter-notification, the entire campaign is documented step by step in the links above, and attorneys have been engaged.
Draw your own conclusions about a studio that spends the run-up to its Lanterns Hall H panel trying to muzzle the outlet reporting that its leadership is on the way out.
And note who’s footing the bill for that panel and the Lanterns promotion at next week’s San Diego Comic-Con: HBO — not Gunn’s DC Studios. Just like Peacemaker at last year’s show, which was all HBO. Which means Gunn skips the biggest comic book event of the year. Again.
What’s Next
I’ll be at the Zack Snyder–Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns tour this Saturday, and CBN will be at Hall H next week.
Funny how that works: the same week WBD tries to shut this site up, the future of DC — per my sources — is standing on a stage next to Frank Miller. Stay tuned.
Matt McGloin is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Cosmic Book News, the independent entertainment news site he founded in 2008. He covers movies, comics, TV, video games and pop culture and has reported major industry scoops over the years, including revealing the Avengers: Endgame title ahead of its official announcement. Through Cosmic Book News, he helped Marvel Comics promote Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova through exclusive previews, artwork, and interviews, with the site also quoted in solicitations and on comic covers. He also reported on Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again retooling before it was later confirmed by the trades.