A massive domino in the entertainment industry fell as David Ellison and Paramount won out in the Warner Brothers/Discovery bidding war with a bid of over $11 billion. The merger will give Ellison full control of the Warner Bros. movie studio, HBO, and, of course, the entire DC Cinematic catalogue.
While James Gunn’s DC Universe project is just getting started, the deal raises many questions about future movies and television series, the viability of certain characters, and the extent of Gunn's control over the future of his cinematic universe.
Here are the most pressing DCU-related questions as Ellison takes control of Warner Bros.
Will Gunn even stay at DC?
Let’s get the most obvious and important question out of the way first. Gunn has been the CEO and co-chairman (alongside Peter Safran) of DC Studios since Nov. 2022 and has released only 3 projects in those three and a half years. In his role as CEO, Gunn develops, directs, and produces projects and lays out the narrative arc of the entire DC Universe. In the previous iteration of Warner Bros., Gunn reported directly to CEO David Zaslav and Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike Deluca and Pam Abdy, three people who may not be involved in the new era of WB.
If Gunn does not work well with the new leadership structure or is unable to have the same control he had previously, his future with the company will be in doubt. Pulling Gunn’s creative mind and superhero storytelling ability was a huge move for DC and weakened the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well. Ensuring he still has full creative control over DC Studios should be imperative for Ellison, as the DCU will play a big role in the future of Paramount/Warner Bros. and his larger goal as a company.
Ellison says he wants Warner Bros. to produce “15 movies per year.” How many of those will be DCU projects?
One of Ellison’s first big proclamations after the merger was that both Paramount and Warner Bros. would release 30 theatrical movies per year. While several of those projects will be original, the DCU intellectual property appears to be a key cog in that plan. Outside of the sequel to 2025’s Superman titled Man of Tomorrow dated for July 2027, we don’t yet know the release schedule of future DCU projects beyond 2026. Projects featuring beloved DC Comics characters Wonder Woman, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and even John Constantine have been announced, but no production updates have been given at this time.
Will Ellison want more projects greenlit as he takes control of Warner Bros.? If the 2026 releases Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and the television series Lanterns are smashing successes, will immediate follow-ups be announced? Will filmmakers like Mike Flanagan, who is directing Clayface, be eager to work with DC Studios, knowing they are guaranteed a theatrical release?
So far, Gunn has been very patient with the announcements of future projects, waiting to see how certain movies/TV series are received before flooding the zone with content. How much Ellison uses DC Studios to reach his theatrical goal will be interesting to follow, especially as the “Gods and Monsters” Universe Gunn is planning is just getting started.
What could the merger mean for Batman?
I started this piece with a question about James Gunn, the CEO of DC Studios, and I’m ending it with the person who really runs the company, Bruce Wayne. Despite being DC’s most well-known character, Gunn has struggled to introduce Batman into his DCU, and the future of the character is still largely unknown. A sequel to Matt Reeves’s 2022 film The Batman has been delayed countless times in the past few years and is currently dated for Oct. 1, 2027, but Gunn has been hesitant to commit to any future films for Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s Batman.
The Brave and the Bold, a Batman film set in Gunn’s DCU, may arrive in 2028, but little is known about the story or who will portray the caped crusader. Batman is undoubtedly DC’s biggest cash cow, with every live-action Batman averaging $565 million at the box office, and the introduction of Bruce Wayne to the DCU will be a monumental event. Gunn has chosen to be patient with Batman, indicating that he doesn’t want to rush production on a film and “overlap” with other DCU projects such as the Man of Tomorrow sequel.
If Ellison is willing to trust Gunn’s storytelling and worldbuilding, audiences may not see Batman in the DCU for a few years. But if the new head of Warner Bros. is looking for immediate financial success on a project, we may get news on the “world’s greatest detective” in the near future.