Will WB Fire James Gunn After Superman? Batman Comics Writer Pours Cold Water on the DCU’s Future

Comics vet Chuck Dixon has a prediction about James Gunn and the DC Universe, and it is not gentle. He thinks Gunn is done at DC after Superman. Let me break down what he said, why he said it, and what the numbers actually look like.

What Dixon actually said

In a chat with Fandom Pulse, Dixon — the writer who helped define Batman, Nightwing, and Robin through the 90s and early 2000s — argued that Gunn will lose his DCU job because Superman was not the runaway hit it needed to be. He even said Gunn might have dodged trouble if he had led with a less iconic character.

'I think it is over for him. Superman failed no matter how you look at it. If it was a Hawkman or a Martian Manhunter movie he might have escaped the hammer that is about to drop on him. But he failed to even break even on a Superman movie. When you have all the good wishes that come with the world's most famous superhero on your side and fail to make a profit it is bad. Real bad.'

He went further, pointing to the lack of a new Peacemaker season order as a sign Gunn is on his way out. In Dixon's view, a coming sale of Warner Bros. could wipe the slate entirely: he floated the idea that Gunn will not be part of the DCU — and maybe there will not be a DCU at all — after that sale.

The sale talk

Warner Bros. Discovery announced earlier this month that the company is up for sale. The New York Times reported that Paramount, Comcast Corp, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple have all shown interest in pieces of WB's assets. That is the backdrop for Dixon's doomsday scenario.

Why Dixon has been out on Gunn for a while

This is not a new stance for him. Dixon has been unimpressed with Gunn's roadmap from the jump, calling the DCU slate extremely underwhelming and questioning Gunn's track record outside of Guardians of the Galaxy (as he told Bounding Into Comics). He also knocked the plan for leaning on relatively recent comics runs rather than the old, foundational DC stories — the kind of books that move big numbers — and said those newer titles are not exactly record breakers. He summed up his interest level as basically: concerned, and also not particularly invested.

So, did Superman actually face-plant?

Short answer: not really, but it is complicated. Gunn's Superman, starring David Corenswet, did not match the loftiest forecasts, yet it still cleared $600 million worldwide and posted a solid opening.

• Worldwide box office: $615,984,465
• Domestic opening weekend: $125 million
• Second weekend drop: 54% (better than several Marvel titles this year, per Forbes)
• Estimated profit for WB: about $125 million, according to Variety
• Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
• IMDb: 7.1
• Cast highlights: Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor

The creative choice was a sunnier, more hopeful Superman that nods to classic comics and the 1978 film. On the bigger studio scoreboard, Warner Bros. has been outperforming rivals like Disney and Universal lately; as analyst David A. Gross told Variety, the studio has made bold bets that are actually paying off. That context matters when you are evaluating one film's ripple effect on a studio chief.

The Peacemaker wrinkle

Dixon reads the absence of a new Peacemaker season announcement as a red flag for Gunn's future. For balance: Peacemaker has been a hit for Gunn and HBO Max, and there is no official move by WB right now that says Gunn is out. The sale chatter has fans on edge, but there is no concrete firing to point to.

Also worth knowing about Dixon

Dixon has been at the center of a few dust-ups himself. When Daniel Warren Johnson's Absolute Batman sketch showed the character as a blue-collar crusader seemingly squaring up to an ICE agent (as covered by Bleeding Cool), Dixon answered with his own drawing: Batman sporting an ICE badge and beating down foes labeled Antifa. Unsurprisingly, that kicked off a political fight in the fandom.

Bottom line

Dixon is swinging hard: he is calling Superman a financial miss and predicting Gunn will get the boot once WB changes hands. The numbers do not scream catastrophe, and WB's broader momentum undercuts the idea that heads must roll right now. But if a sale happens, all bets are off — new owners can reset anything they want, DCU included.

Where do you land on this? Is Dixon reading the tea leaves or just rooting for a result he already believed in?