DC swapped its f-bomb guy for a 'meat and potatoes' boss — Peacemaker fans, start worrying

The press release about James Gunn and Peter Safran leaving DC Studios is all gratitude. The Hollywood Reporter's account of why contains the sentence that actually matters:

"If Gunn was the guy to deliver f-bombs and lesser known characters, Latcham was the guy to deliver what's more in line with Ellison's more meat and potatoes tastes, say multiple sources."

— The Hollywood Reporter

Read that as a mission statement, because that's what it is. Jeremy Latcham, the incoming president, is described by THR's sources as a "down the middle shooter." David Ellison's taste is "meat and potatoes." And everything that made Gunn's DCU recognizable was neither.

What the f-bombs actually bought

Gunn's DC was built on the bet that Marvel's playbook had a blind spot: it would never open a universe with an R-rated cartoon about monster convicts, which is exactly what Creature Commandos was. It would never hand a franchise pillar to John Cena in white briefs, with an opening dance number, a bald eagle sidekick, and a theme of fathers ruining their sons. It would never put a Batman villain in a $40 million body-horror movie, which Clayface repaid with $109 million in three weekends.

That strangeness wasn't decoration. It was the only competitive identity DC has had since the Snyder years ended, and viewers knew it:

"Like it or not, Gunn's DCU at least had character that set it apart from Marvel. If WB decides to change that, or even worse to completely reboot the DCU again, then the DCU project might as well be considered dead."

— a commenter on r/boxoffice

The cut zone

"Down the middle" is not an abstraction; it comes with a knife. Per Matt Belloni at Puck, Skydance is already moving to dismantle "much of what Gunn and Safran had plotted out", with the safe list running to Man of Tomorrow, The Batman Part II, and one HBO series in development.

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Now look at what lives outside that list:

• Peacemaker season 3, which Gunn was answering questions about with an emoji even before the takeover.
• Creature Commandos season 2, renewed and in production.
• A Clayface follow-up, earned at the box office three weeks ago.
• The weird tail of the 2023 "Gods and Monsters" slate: Swamp Thing, The Authority, Booster Gold.

Every one of those is an f-bombs-and-lesser-known-characters project by definition, and the doctrine that replaced Gunn exists specifically to not make them.

The safe list is Superman, Batman and one HBO show. Everything DC made that Marvel wouldn't dare is on the other list.

A meat-and-potatoes DC will still produce movies, possibly profitable ones. But the fourth ground-up restart since Batman Begins means the audience that finally got its strange, mean, funny DC — the one that showed up for a monster-convict cartoon and an R-rated mudman — is about to be told, again, that none of it counted.

Previously we wrote: Why does Hollywood need $150 million for a Godzilla movie when Toho does it for $15 million?