DC Studios’ James Gunn and Peter Safran Talk David Ellison Reunion

DC Studios has lifted the veil on clay face at the Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening. The world premiere sparked a thrill among audiences eager to see how the comic book villain’s origin story plays out on the big screen, but it was also a momentous occasion for DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran.

clay face marks the third official film in their DC Universe continuity – following the solid success Superman and the major failure Supergirl – and the first to be released under new boss David Ellison following Warner Bros.’ blockbuster acquisition. Discovery by Paramount Skydance to form the new mega entity Skydance. The red carpet event marked Gunn and Safran’s first public outing since being told to “keep doing what you’re doing” by being asked by Ellison to remain in their positions as co-presidents and co-CEOs of DC Studios. The duo reports directly to him.

Needless to say, this was a topic of conversation during their respective interviews with The Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s exciting,” Safran said of the new Skydance era. “James and I had this bigger story that we wanted to tell when we started four years ago. We were just starting to tell it, so the fact that we now have the opportunity to do it with even more resources at our disposal, with an even greater scope is really exciting for us. There’s a lot to come.”

Safran has gone through its catalog, which includes the recently released full season of Lanterns, Clayface, The man of tomorrow in post-production with Gunn at the helm, Batman Part II in production (with Steven Soderbergh stepping in to help Matt Reeves), The People Against Gorilla Grodd in production, and more to be determined.

“We think there’s still a lot of stuff that we want to dive into. And so we’re excited that David Ellison has invited us to continue,” added Safran, who said that during his time with Ellison, they revealed a deeper look at their DC projects. “We really took him to the tent and talked about the direction we’re looking at for the next few years so he has a really good idea of ​​what we want to do and he seems to embrace that idea.”

“David knows everything,” added Gunn, who recently revealed he is also writing a new project while juggling post-production work on The man of tomorrow. “We told David a long time ago and explained what the basic plan was. When he first brought us in and said he wanted to continue what we were doing, we told him everything we wanted to do (and talked) about what was happening, the secrets, where the DCU was going and what was going to happen from there. The man of tomorrow on.”

But the first will be clay face when it hits theaters on October 23, and early responses online are positive. Written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini and directed by James Watkins, clay face focuses on a Hollywood movie star named Tom Hagen who is severely disfigured following a violent attack orchestrated by a Gotham mob boss. Desperate to get that good life back, Hagen undergoes an experimental procedure at the hands of a scientist (Naomi Ackie) that initially works only to give way to a frightening new reality with shape-shifting skin. Chaos ensues.

Safran was also optimistic in detailing the place of Watkins’ film on the list. “We’ve always talked about the idea that a DC movie should have a huge range of tones, moods, scales, scopes and budget levels. The fact that we can make a DC movie that’s a pure body horror movie, it’s a dream come true,” he said of the film, which stars Tom Rhys Harries in the title role and reportedly cost around $30 million. “James (Gunn) and I are both steeped in horror stories. The fact that we could make a horror movie and package it in the DC package with the great mythology of a classic Batman villain, that’s really what we set out to do. James Watkins fully delivered. If you don’t know the character, if you don’t know the comics, it doesn’t matter. You’ll love it as a great movie of horror.”

Producer Lynn Harris, who is Reeves’ producing partner, was a longtime executive at New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures before becoming a producer in the field. That means she’s faced many changes to the company’s structure, and like Gunn and Safran, she was optimistic about Skydance’s new regime that includes Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein as co-presidents of the motion picture group.

“We have new bosses. It’s changing and it always has been. There’s always been that moment of, ‘Oh my God, there’s a new buyer.’ Or, ‘Oh my God, there’s a new owner. Are we shrinking? Is the movie business going to be challenged forever? And the truth is, David Ellison, Dana, Josh, they’re all people who love movies.

Watkins was equally unfazed. “It’s all just outside noise,” he said. “All I can do is make the best movie I can, and the rest is out of your control. But I’m excited about the movie. We’ve gotten a good response and I hope it really touches people.”