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DC Studios Chief Says Movie Industry Is 'Dying,' Claims Disney 'Killed' Marvel With Output Mandates (rollingstone.com) 175

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
DC Studios co-head James Gunn argues that the movie industry is "dying" primarily because productions begin before screenplays are complete, while also delivering a sharp critique of his former employer Marvel Studios, which he claims Disney has "killed" through output mandates.

Gunn dismissed common explanations for Hollywood's struggles like declining theater attendance or improved home viewing experiences, telling Rolling Stone that "the number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay." The filmmaker has implemented a strict rule at DC Studios requiring finished scripts before production starts, recently scrapping a project because its screenplay wasn't ready.

The director, who previously helmed three "Guardians of the Galaxy" films for Marvel, said Disney's corporate directive to increase output destroyed the studio's creative process. "They were under a corporate mandate, yeah. That wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it killed them," Gunn said, referring to Marvel's mandated production quotas for movies and television shows. By contrast, Gunn said DC Studios operates without numerical mandates. "We don't have the mandate to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality," he explained.

DC Studios Chief Says Movie Industry Is 'Dying,' Claims Disney 'Killed' Marvel With Output Mandates More | Reply

DC Studios Chief Says Movie Industry Is 'Dying,' Claims Disney 'Killed' Marvel With Output Mandates

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  • "What evil lurks in the hearts of Scrum?" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:05AM (#65457927)

    TIRED: "Shoot what? We don't even have a script!"

    WIRED: "Show biz has embraced agile!"

    • Re:"What evil lurks in the hearts of Scrum?" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ThePhilips ( 752041 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:47AM (#65458077) Homepage Journal

      Movie goers are the alpha testers.

      • I think we call that "early access release" these days. That's not even much of a joke. Just look at Alien Romulus, a great movie in many respects, but one that objectively had a post release change in VFX for the streaming / DVD release based on reviews from the theatrical release.

      • A very fair point, indeed.

        People just probably got smarter and developed more defenses against hype-creating film marketing departments and have had enough of paying money to see a cat in a bag.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by irving47 ( 73147 )

        Worse than that, they (looking at you Victoria Alonso) pushed the VFX/CGI people to the brink at the last minute for bargain basement rates which showed, on-screen... AND used the completed shots as storyboards that should have been paper at best, or animatics (pre-rendered wireframes) at worst.

    • Re:"What evil lurks in the hearts of Scrum?" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @12:05PM (#65458513)

      The problem is Marvel movies are good, but increasingly creatively boring.
      DC movies meanwhile, are completely random disconnected nonsense, like DC is more concerned with protecting IP than producing anything that might tarnish Superman or Batman.

      Like "Arrowverse" CW TV was pretty good for what it was. "The Flash" was the best part of the DC Television universe.

      But they also made all of it run too long. They should have made every season an adaption of one storyline from the comics, and left it that. This need to constantly have to know things about the other show, ruins investment in the "DC Universe". Since DC never puts out quality films at all, it's kind of hard to be invested in it.

      Say what you want about Marvel crapping out a tonne of films, at least you can draw a line from film 1 to film 10, but the entire MCU should have ended before civil war. Just end it, give the IP a rest, and then come back in 5 years with a new film that doesn't rely on having seen 30 others.

      DC meanwhile can't even put out films it has completed, and for that reason I'm not invested in DC. MCU works for films, DC CW-verse works for TV. That's it.

      At this point I haven't seen any super hero movies in the last 10 years until they are on netflix because I just don't care anymore.

      • It's worth noting we haven't really seen a new generation DC movie. The DCEU thing was a failure, definitely. It remains to be seen what Gunn will do with the thing, the new Superman film looks potentially interesting and a step away from Snyder's Batman-fan take but, I mean, there have been at least three bad Superman films before the DCEU even came into being.

        Anyway, point is we don't know what the new movies will be like.

        Also, Legends of Tomorrow was the best Arrowverse, fight me! ;-) (OK, minus season 1

  • This makes sense. I used to really like the marvel movies and looked forward to them but the last one I saw didn't have anything particularly interesting and the characters had lost all their individual personality. But I can't say anything I have seen since the pandemic in the theatres was particularly note-worthy. Of course I like regular adult movies, not cheap horror or cartoons or movies that were once cartoons so that limits my selection to around 10% of movies released. Maybe The Lord of the Ring

    • Re:Marvel (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Frederic54 ( 3788 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:29AM (#65458009) Journal
      When I saw the poster for the new Fantastic Four movie, I thought it was generated by AI or by a fan in his basement. Then I saw the trailer... oh boy... this looks horrible... About all Marvel movies have bad CGI, bad acting, and dull and shallow scenario.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
      I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters...race and gender swapping, and more interested in promotion of "the message" rather than true to the cannon story telling.

      • Re:Marvel (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:57AM (#65458107)
        I'm less worried about certain of these cartoon characters not having a dick anymore than I am about nothing remotely interesting, or sometimes even intelligible, happening to them over the course of two-and-a-half hours.

      • I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters.

        Probably not, since Deadpool is pansexual, and frankly acts rather gay.

      • So you preferred David Hasselhoff's version of Nick Fury to Sam Jackson's? The best actor for a roll should get it, regardless of their race/gender/etc. Hiring someone based on their race is a "DEI hire" right? I thought you MAGA shits were against that?

        • Funny how no one brings up race batting shit until some progressive little asshat like you shows up.

      • And it's got nothing to do with the lack of fresh new ideas with pretty much everything being a sequel, prequel, remake or reboot.

      • I'm sure the problems have nothing to do with ruining beloved characters...race and gender swapping, and more interested in promotion of "the message" rather than true to the cannon story telling.

        If the story was good, you'd LOVE anything with race/gender swapped. Make Deadpool a trans afrolatina with high functioning autism and just as funny and make the story even better, you'd embrace it. This whole "canon" discussion is pure bullshit. All that matters is if it's entertaining. Any race/gender swapping failed because you were bored.

        Miles Morales was a much better spiderman than Andrew Garfield's Spiderman. Most prefer the Spiderverse spiderman because it was simply a better story.

        Most p

        • Comics aren't even sacred to themselves. Probably the most parodied aspect of superhero comics is just how frequently "canon" is thrown into a blender, thrown out, and how new writers will just ignore established canon. Every decade or two, the publishers will make a big deal of reuniting timelines, and act as if it was part of some grand plan. The complexity of the textual history of Green Lantern, as an example, rivals the New Testament.

        • You pick an existing story or character for that appeal and existing fanbase. You don't then go shit on it in front of the fans while trying to appeal to the masses who were never fans by trying to bring them into whatever hack story made from a PLOT BOOK you randomly picked on a deadline. Now, you can use an AI to do that crap writing and it'll probably come out better simply because it's highly flawed output actually creates interesting ideas.

          I think AI will surpass humans at doing popular appeal; but th

      • The phenomena are likely related. If you're on a breakneck release schedule, schlock that might not make it past test audiences slips through the cracks. Careers that maybe never should have happened, happened.

    • Yea...

      Except for Black Widow and Love & Thunder I just haven't been able to conjure or sustain much interest in Marvel post-Endgame. That seems to be the consensus of most of my friends who also like the genre. I don't know if we all underestimated just how much Chris Evans and RDJ were the "heart" of the franchise, or if the story just felt done after Endgame, or if there's just no way the bar set by Endgame will be topped anytime soon. But Marvel seems to be in "And oh, a bunch of this miscellaneou

  • eh (Score:2)

    by nomadic ( 141991 )

    "So we're going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality"

    Let us know when you start.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      Ouch.

    • You know they haven't put out any movies yet, right?

      Gunn is in charge of a full reboot of the DC stuff. The DCEU were the "previous guys".

      It's arguably not even the same corporation any more, given Discovery bought WB.

  • It isn't "dying"... go make new stuff... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:22AM (#65457987)

    The movie industry isn't dying. People are just tired of the same old, washed up, grim, IP over and over again. Bring back the 80s with new, fantasy IP that isn't connected to some existing universe or is a spin-off. Bring back stuff that doesn't have the same Hollywood ending. Create IP that can have one standalone movie and not need sequels or reboots.

    For DC, enough with the darker and grittier aspects. Do something campy as an alternate timeline, bring back a less lethal, but annoying Joker, perhaps a Joker who is chaotic neutral rather than an elemental force of chaotic evil. We could use a 2 minute, 30 minute bomb disposal scene again.

    These are grim times. Time for the movie industry to realize that, and bring back more comedies. Naked Gun is a step in the right direction. Perhaps a Star Wars: Lower Decks?

  • The real solution is cheaper movies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <`voyager529' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:33AM (#65458021)

    There are many issues with the movie industry at the moment...but I think that many of them can be addressed simply by making cheaper movies.

    If a studio commits to spending half a billion dollars on a movie, they're going to enforce extremely rigid parameters. If Gunn wants to get half-billion dollar budgets, he's going to have to deal with the fact that he won't be the director - the Board of Directors will be.

    The more practical approach is to pursue less expensive movies - $10M-$50M is a much better ground to work with, because the suits won't be as rigid on their direction. More creativity can flourish because there won't be as much pressure to be a paint-by-numbers film. There won't be expectations of making a billion dollars; if five $20M movies get made and one makes $200M and the other four only break even, the studio covered their costs and still doubled their money.

    So, yeah, apparently James is discovering that big piles of money come with rules. News at 11.

  • Stop milking the superhero movies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @09:58AM (#65458111)
    They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.

    • Oh, you have a power? I have power + 1! Oh yeah?! I have power + 5! Oh yeah?!! Turns out, I have power + infinity!

      This is basically every super hero movie I have ever seen.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        You also forget the classic: "Oh, I have that superpower, but I'm also an angsty teenager that needs to impress his girlfriend". Or the eternal: "I retired because I think superhero powers are unethical, but now the Universe needs me to un-retire".

        I'd love to see a movie set in the Sanderson's Reckoners universe. It's a universe where the super-heroes (called "epics") are actively evil.

      • You forgot to resolve all conflict with time travel at the endgame.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tx ( 96709 )

        My favourite superheroes, such as Batman and Black Widow, have no superpowers, so there are at least a few exceptions to that. But yeah, that is generally the problem with the genre.

        • I didn't like twisted sickness that infected the Deadpool movies; couldn't even finish the 1st one. However, in the 2nd one they should have done more with that lady with the power of LUCK! That was perfect to be satirical on no-power superheroes.

          Batman totally has a super power; although, a few movies get close to removing his luck powers. Black Widow is even more lucky.

        • My biggest problem with the Marvel (sans Spiderman) and DCEU stuff was the insistence on a format that made it hard, if not impossible, to explore what the actual consequences of the superpower was.

          The original Superman films (at least, one and two, maybe three if it hadn't been badly written), and the first Wonder Woman, were examples of the genre done right. Likewise the Ms Marvel TV show which added both a "I have powers" and a "Culture you're not familiar with" thing to make it genuinely interesting. Wh

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        You can do the same thing in SF with :"technobabble gizmo + 1", or in fantasy with magic systems, or war movies with secret weapons. How you resolve the action is just a macguffin, what actually matters is how deep and interesting are your characters and do you have an interesting story to tell. If those things are true, the plot can be as goofy as you want and people will still connect to it.

    • They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.

      Superhero movies make up a tiny minority of releases, and are definitely not the worst of what Disney is pushing. Good superhero movies still make decent money and are still entertaining. What you can do about this is: go watch something else. There were a handful of superhero movies released in 2024, out of 569 total movies in the USA alone. There's something out there for you if you want to go look.

    • Re:Stop milking the superhero movies (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @10:45AM (#65458245) Homepage Journal

      There are still interesting stories to tell. Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were both pretty good, and I'm hopeful that his new Superman movie is similarly interesting.

      The issue is the saturation of the market with crap superhero stuff, with second rate characters and a focus on introducing new ones and setting up the next movie, rather than telling a complete and interesting story.

      I like how Gun leans into the comic book silliness in his works. They aren't parodies, but they do acknowledge how silly it all is. Peacemaker, the character, is basically a satire of US foreign policy, and that's something that we have only really scratched the surface of. I do wonder how far he could take it, like could he do a Bananaman movie where the whole basis of the character and villains is parody, or is there a limit to it? Certainly the movies that have set out to be funny, like Shazam, have been fairly uninspiring.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        There are still interesting stories to tell. Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were both pretty good

        Eh. Still pretty stereotypical, even with a freaking secret Nazi base.

    • They should just stop doing the superhero crap. It's boring, you can play that only a few times before you start repeating the same tropes over and over again. It's just basically Greek god stories but with the modern entourage.

      I agree. It was amazing when they first started coming out. Now I'm tired of it. I'm tired of time travel stories too.

      Here's the thing though: the beauty of free markets is Disney is free to try one approach, DC is free to try another. We'll see in the end which one works out better. I don't really care which approach they use as long as great content eventually shows up on my screen. I personally can't keep up with all the Star Wars and Marvel content Disney is cranking out so I'd be pretty happy if they s

  • Maybe the movie industry is dying because it became obsessed with feasting on its own rot. Case in point, if you think Disney/Marvel played a significant role in killing the movie industry, the industry itself could be blamed for allowing one studio to control that much of the industry.

    That said, maybe the movie industry needs to die. And maybe, just maybe, some of those really good indie films that get produced year after year but barely get any recognition can start being recognized for being as good as t

  • The "content" industry will adapt. (Score:5, Informative)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday June 18, 2025 @10:24AM (#65458189)

    When westerns fell out of favour in the late '70s and early '80s, the content industry was able to adapt across radio, TV and full lenght film.

    and westerns were MUCH MORE prevalent than superhero has been.

    do not worry, the content industry will adapt once more...

  • ... endless superhero movies.
    It's also a lack of creativity with remakes, reboots, "franchises" and other endless retelling of old stories.
    Theaters are dinosaurs that deserve to die. They were once necessary because of the tech of the time, but today there is nothing pleasant about the theater experience

  • The real reason is that they issued so many superhero movies that people got bored. How many times can you watch someone save the world over and over again? It's like they only know one plot line.

  • James Gunn gave a revealing interview this week about the state of Hollywood, blaming "output mandates"—studio demands to meet yearly content quotas regardless of script readiness—for the industry's ongoing collapse. He’s not wrong, but let’s be honest: this isn’t a new problem. It’s a return to form. Hollywood has always been about quantity over quality. What’s different now is that the illusion of quality no longer holds.

    The average audience member isn’t demanding emotional nuance or structural elegance. They’re chasing momentum, coherence, and dopamine payoffs. And for a long time, studios delivered that just fine. The MCU in particular perfected the formula: three acts, some snark, and a beam fight at the end. It worked because it felt like it meant something, even when it didn’t. Lore depth was simulated with callbacks. Character arcs were faked with a sad line before the CGI showdown. The illusion held.

    What’s changed isn’t public taste. It’s studio execution. They’re not even bothering to fake it anymore. Projects are greenlit without finished scripts, without storyboards, without a coherent vision—because the Q3 roadmap demands four movies and two shows. This isn’t just creative failure. It’s an institutional surrender: a quiet admission that it’s cheaper to assume the audience is tasteless and stupid than to keep pretending they’re not.

    Gunn isn’t lamenting a fall in audience standards—he’s pointing out that even the illusion of depth takes work. If you stop simulating quality, the whole scaffolding collapses—and so does the box office. The problem isn’t that the audience is stupid. It’s that studios are now acting like it’s safe to bet that they are. Hollywood isn’t chasing artistry anymore; it’s trying to be Netflix: frictionless, forgettable, and fed on a subscription.

    Hollywood didn’t invent tastelessness. It exploited it. Then it refined it. Now it’s trying to automate it. And I think Gunn’s right—the illusion, finally, is wearing thin.

  • They're out in stores before the movie is finished!

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