Paramount Wants To Keep James Gunn at DC Studios (But Will He Stay?)

With Warner Bros. Discovery posting a “For Sale” sign out front as negotiations for a merger with Paramount continue to hit a wall, one of the big questions is what the heck happens to James Gunn?

The highly anticipated DC Universe just launched over the summer with the blockbuster release of Superman, so surely Gunn is safe. For the first time in over a decade, DC Comics is cleaning Marvel’s clock at the box office, so that’s easily a shiny coin that David Ellison wants in his hand. In fact, the latest reporting practically says as much.

Via Bloomberg:

Paramount Skydance Corp. plans to keep much of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. intact if it merges with the rival film and TV studio, a decision that may help address worries about job losses and production cuts.

David Ellison, chief executive officer and controlling shareholder of Paramount, wants to keep the creative teams of the two studios, while consolidating some of the marketing and distribution, according to people familiar with his plans.

While that sounds well and good, and Gunn is clearly in a strong bargaining position, he’s being noticeably quiet about the proceedings. There’s probably a good reason for that: Regime changes at Warner Bros. are infamously messy. They’re why the studio is standing out on the street corner looking for suitors in the first place. These shakeups never go well and are a big part of the reason why the previous DCEU (a.k.a. the Snyderverse) became a zombie franchise that ended with a string of duds and a brutal public humiliation for Henry Cavill.

If I were a betting man, Gunn will probably stick around as the DC Studio head, but pull back on writing and directing. He’s already hinted in interviews that he might only have energy for Man of Tomorrow — if that movie even happens. Again, the chances are very good that it will, but let’s be real: Everything is in flux right now.

Paramount just let Taylor Sheridan walk out the door, so Gunn might be seeing all kinds of writing on the wall that tells him to cut bait. He brought Superman in for a landing, which is no small feat, so it’s not like he won’t be an in-demand player. Also, not for nothing, there is talk of Kevin Feige stepping down as the head of Marvel after Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.

Leaping back and forth between the Big Two is a comic book tradition…