DC Studios: Gunn-Safran Hit Piece Causes Lanterns Season 2 Confusion
· BCPosted in: HBO, Max, Movies, TV | Tagged: dc studios, lanterns
DC Studios: Gunn-Safran Hit Piece Causes Lanterns Season 2 Confusion
A recent Variety report on DC Studios from an alleged "insider" reads a lot more like a hit piece aimed at James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Published Wed, 11 Nov 2026 10:37:09 -0600
by Ray Flook
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Article Summary
- Lanterns Season 2 remains in limbo after the DC Studios shake-up, with Chris Mundy calling its odds a coin flip.
- A Variety insider frames Lanterns as lacking zeitgeist, but the report reads like a hit piece on Gunn and Safran.
- Lanterns viewership claims clash sharply: Variety cites 19 million, while Skydance reported 22 million globally.
- The Lanterns renewal narrative ignores modern streaming realities, where even hit shows often wait months for Season 2.
By now, we all know the big headline. James Gunn and Peter Safran are out at DC Studios, and Marvel Studios vet Jeremy Latcham is taking over in a diminished role that now answers to Skydance's film heads and not the company's CEOs. What we don't know is what this will all mean moving forward, with a number of Gunn and Safran projects still on the way, like Man of Tomorrow, Creature Commandos, and The People v. Gorilla Grodd. And then there's the matter of Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King's Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre-starring Lanterns. We know that preliminary work on Season 2 was underway – but that was before the big news hit. During a recent FYC event for Lanterns, Mundy was asked if the news would help or hinder the chances for a second season. "We thought everything had settled [after the merger]. I can imagine a world where everyone retreats to their corners, but then, you know, it's a coin flip, 50/50," Mundy shared with The Playlist.
And then Variety dropped a source-filled behind-the-scenes look at what went down that led to Skydance's DC Studios parting ways with Gunn and Safran. Personally, the piece read like a Skydance CEO-approved hit piece on Gunn and Safran, with a whole lot of (at best) questionable assessments of DC Studios' relatively brief run. The part that got our attention was the focus on Lanterns, with the piece reading, "'Lanterns,' their first live-action TV show, had strong viewership and averaged 19 million viewers globally per episode going into the finale." Those numbers sound pretty good, right? In fact, Skydance's Q3 2026 Shareholder Letter even highlighted the DC Studios series' success, noting "DC's Lanterns and House of the Dragon Season 3 rank among HBO Max's strongest launches and returning seasons ever, averaging 22 million and 42 million global viewers, respectively."
Let's set aside the fact that the Variety piece found a way to run a lower number for Lanterns than Skydance reported in its earnings report – and that came out before Variety's piece. The "insider" also "suggests the crime drama isn't quite capturing the zeitgeist, pointing out the show has yet to be renewed for a second season." First off, you lose trust points by using a douchey, vague phrase like "zeitgeist" – though this "insider" might want to check the show's growing social media engagement over the course of the season's run. But all you need to know about this "insider" either having their own agenda or being clueless about how television works in 2026 is this line: "People cannot wait to make another season of a hit show."
Maybe in 1997 it was still that way. Now, in the era of streaming, we have certified hit shows waiting months for official renewals. We have shows that get Season 2 green lights, only for them to be canceled (Wonder Man, anyone?). We have shows that have a new season and get pulled only hours before they were supposed to return (Chad, anyone?). For me, that was the red flag that the piece was more about torpedoing Gunn and Safran's legacy than anything else – so much so that Variety had to clean up its wording when it came to their "insider" claiming that Lanterns "didn't get renewed for a second season." The wording now reads that the series "has yet to be renewed for a second season."
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