Speaking as part of his company’s earnings call with Wall Street analysts Thursday morning, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was asked about a potential change of strategy at DC Studios.
The question ties to June’s release of “Supergirl,” the film opening to mixed reviews and a total worldwide box-office haul of just $126 million. That makes it the poorest-performing DC Studios title since “Jonah Hex” almost twenty years ago.
The film’s performance is a far cry from James Gunn’s own “Superman” which made $618 million globally. Multiple other DC projects are on the way with “Lanterns” on HBO Max this month, “Clayface” in cinemas in October, and “Man of Tomorrow” opening next year.
Responding to the question, Zaslav said (via THR):
“[James Gunn is] focused on Man of Tomorrow. I saw some pictures yesterday that looked amazing. Actually, yesterday was James’ birthday, and he’s out working. He’s working 16, 18 hours a day. It looks fantastic. We’re super excited about it.
[The Batman Part II director] Matt Reeves, I spoke to over the weekend, and he’s working very hard on Batman, and we have Clayface coming up soon, which looks terrific.
We got Lanterns launching in the next few weeks on HBO, which Casey [Bloys] and Sarah [Aubrey] are super excited about, and so DC feels very good, and we have a robust pipeline, and Peter [Safran] and James are hard at work.”
Zaslav is famous for overhyping superhero titles, most notably singing the praises of 2023’s “The Flash” which subsequently tanked with critics and at the box-office.
