A popular online joke format in recent months goes something like this: If James Gunn had been in charge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what would his first three movies have been?
One answer shared earlier this year on Reddit succinctly nails the problem with Gunn's vision for the DC Universe. The first movie is still Iron Man (starting strong, like with Gunn's Superman), but the second release is Ironheart (a spinoff focused on a less popular character á la Supergirl), and the third project is Venom (a superhero-less villain spinoff just like Clayface). That meme was posted four months ago. In hindsight, it reveals exactly what went wrong with the DCU.
News broke on Monday, Nov. 9 that DC Studios co-CEOs Gunn and Safran would be stepping down from their shared role, with former Marvel exec Jeremy Latcham taking over as sole leader of the Skydance Media division. It's unclear whether Latcham will reboot the DC movie franchise yet again, though Gunn said in a message on Threads that he still plans to complete and release his Superman follow-up, Man of Tomorrow, while also teasing another unannounced DCU film.
But here's the thing, while I'm still excited for Man of Tomorrow , it's hard to feel like there was an actual plan with momentum for the future of the DCU. From Clayface and Supergirl to Peacemaker and Lanterns , it felt like Gunn was mostly just winging it based on whatever sounded awesome and different than what Marvel was doing.
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