Don’t expect more Penguin — DC’s new boss wants movies his grandma would like

There have been some serious shake-ups at DC Studios lately – enough to make even the most jaded comic book fan do a double take. In the space of just a few short years since their big reboot, the DCU's had more plot twists behind the scenes than most of its on-screen supervillains. That bold new era kicked off in 2023, the moment James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-CEOs, with a plan that felt (for once) genuinely ambitious and risky for the world of men in capes.

Big swings and odd choices

The initial Gunn/Safran slate barreled out with series like Creature Commandos and Peacemaker – not exactly safe bets, but exactly what the DCU needed. The Penguin landed as a grime-soaked Elseworlds drama, pushing hard into R-rated territory, while the latest Superman brought some actual inspiration and hope. Not all the swings connected: Supergirl was both a critical flop and a box office misfire earlier this year, yet follow-ups like Man of Tomorrow and The Batman: Part II stayed in the works.

Lanterns split critics and fans right down the middle. Still, nobody could accuse them of playing it too safe. The big surprise, though, was Clayface. Released in October, it turned into a proper R-rated hit, which is nothing short of miraculous if you've been paying attention to the usual doom-and-gloom talk around comic book films lately.

Of course, it hasn’t all been blue skies. Projects like The Authority were hyped and then binned without ceremony. But with upcoming oddballs like The People v. Gorilla Grodd, DC was still showing the sort of guts Marvel left back in 2019.

Leadership chaos and a changing guard

Now for the twist nobody asked for: Gunn and Safran are out, and Jeremy Latcham is in. Latcham will take over as president and chief creative officer. The news hit DCU die-hards like a bucket of cold water, mainly because after all that risk-taking, the last thing people wanted was new management suddenly steering the ship elsewhere. All that, and the real bombshell is how divided opinion is about whether Latcham is the genius DCU needs.

On paper, Latcham's Marvel credentials sound strong: associate producer on Iron Man, co-producer on Iron Man 2, and executive producer credits on The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Not bad, but since then he’s mainly been attached to stuff like Bad Times at the El Royale and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – both fun (I'm a fan of the D&D one myself), but neither exactly a box office juggernaut. His other pet project, The Breadwinner, not only flopped commercially but currently sits at a dismal 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you’re after reassurance that DC’s future will be all bold and edgy, that CV doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.

The Breadwinner holds a 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes, a fact that's already raising questions about the DCU's future creative direction.

Latcham's "grandma test" – alarm bells ring

The doubts ramped up the moment Latcham was announced. Within hours, the internet started digging into his past interviews. And yes, his sudden arrival comes just as Warner Bros. wraps up its big merger with Skydance, which is now in the big chair. Coincidence? Most think not; many DC watchers are reading this as a move away from Gunn/Safran’s anything-goes sensibility towards something much more... safe.

What actually fanned the flames was a resurfaced interview from earlier this year on CBN News, a Christian channel, where Latcham talked about his approach to making films:

Here's how Latcham described his guiding star, for better or worse, when making blockbuster movies:

"I'd always be like, 'I don't know if my grandma would like that, you know?' And that became like a guiding light of like as we were developing the movies, I just had this sense of, 'I don't know if my grandma would like that,' and that became the stand-in [to determine if a movie] is going to work for regular people that are outside of the bubble of Hollywood. What does this [movie] say for a regular family?"

Now, making films that grandma might actually sit through isn’t the end of the world. But you do have to wonder: if granny wouldn’t fancy the body horror of Clayface or the mob brutality of The Penguin, does that mean those sorts of shows are on the chopping block? Online, plenty of DC fans are assuming exactly that – with comments like ‘RIP Peacemaker and anything rated R’ turning up on X (Twitter) and Reddit. Even self-described religious fans have flagged up worries that Latcham heralds a return to generic, safe superhero fare. As one Redditor put it, the DCU is not in 2008 anymore; audiences have moved on, and playing it safe just isn’t enough.

Is the R-rated era on the way out?

Let’s be fair: nobody really knows what Latcham is planning yet. But a lot of the anxiety is justified. Under Gunn and Safran, DC greenlit wild, grown-up projects – Clayface wasn’t just R-rated, it was packed with some properly violent and weird stuff, and it paid off. The Penguin had graphic violence, Lanterns had some rough language, and Peacemaker led with a bisexual protagonist – all, frankly, breathers in the bland superhero landscape. Stories tackled messy topics and real-world issues, like Superman nodding to global conflict, or Supergirl actually bothering to take on human traffickers (when it wasn’t tanking at the box office).

If the new regime really does mean everything's filtered through the ‘grandma test’, expect fewer projects that grapple with real, sometimes unpleasant bits of modern life. The focus could drift back to safe spectacle, less social commentary, with even films like a planned R-rated Constantine sequel suddenly looking shaky.

Maybe it’s all just nerves meeting a leadership change, maybe not. Either way, all eyes are now on how Man of Tomorrow lands – it might be the clearest marker yet for whether the DCU stays wild or goes soft.