The DCU and James Gunn’s Batman Was Dead Before It Was Even BornThe Brave and the Untold.
Updated
: Nov 9, 2026 9:22pm UTC
James Gunn and Peter Safran are out at DC Studios. Their tenure as co-bosses began in earnest in January 2023 with the announcement of an ambitious 8-10 year plan for DC film and TV projects dubbed Gods and Monsters: Chapter One. Among the projects Gunn and Safran revealed in that original announcement was Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which was meant to serve as the live-action introduction of the DCU’s Caped Crusader.
While Gunn made good on his promise to introduce audiences to new iterations of Superman, Green Lantern, Supergirl, Lex Luthor, and more, DC Studios never did get their marquee character, Batman, onto the big screen. And that, ultimately, may have cost Gunn and Safran their jobs.
Batman is inarguably DC’s most popular character and the one who has been the most bankable for them on the big screen. (Gunn recently referred to Batman and Wonder Woman as DC’s “diamond characters” despite their continued absence in the DCU.) So for DC Studios to not have their potentially grand slam-hitting character in theaters meant they were relying on a lot of other characters,
