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In 2022 Warner Bros. was at a crossroads. Walter Hamada had stepped down from his position as president of DC Films, the studios imprint for DC Comics content. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav wanted a “Kevin Feige type” to reshape DC’s cinematic slate.

Zaslav turned to Warner Bros. co-chairs Michael De Luca and Pam Adby for advice, and they had a simple message. “Our advice when we were asked was it doesn’t need another career executive, it needs a storyteller in charge,” De Luca says during an appearance on the SmartLess podcast.

“We were really impressed with Pixar, they brought Pete Docter, who’s a filmmaker, in from the field to be chief content officer and preside over their slate of movies,” De Luca continues.

Zaslav took their advice, and in October 2022 James Gunn and Peter Safran were appointed as co-presidents of DC Films, which was being reorganized as DC Studios. As part of this reorganization, DC Studios was separated from Warner Bros. Pictures, operating as its own studio under the Warner Bros. Discovery umbrella. This means that Gunn and Safran report directly to Zaslav, with no executive meddling from the other studio heads.

“We have to stipulate, DC reports directly to David Zaslav. We don’t oversee it, but we were big supporters of Peter and James taking the job,” De Luca clarifies.

While De Luca and Adby aren’t overseeing DC Studios, they’re thrilled with the direction Gunn and Safran are taking.

“James is great,” Adby says. “I used to chase James as a producer when he did Slither and started with his low-budget movies. He’s really unique and I think DC is in great hands with the two of them,” De Luca says.

It’s also worth noting that prior to the formation of DC Studios, it was De Luca and Adby who hired James Gunn to write a Superman screenplay. The two co-chairs reveal that they’ve now seen a cut of that finished movie.

“We’ve seen an early cut of Superman, and I don’t want to bury the lede, there’s a lot of marketing about to roll out on the way to its release, but he really understood the assignment. His heart is in the right place, his aim is true, and we’re really excited about their new version of DC,” De Luca says.

Superman flies into theaters on July 11.

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