‘Supergirl’ Producer Says David Ellison Has Met With James Gunn, Peter Safran: “He’s Pretty Open to What We’re Doing”

DC Studios co-chairmen and co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran have already met with Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison amid the ongoing proposed merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance.

At the Brooklyn blue carpet premiere of Supergirl on Monday night, executive producer Lars P. Winther confirmed that Ellison has already been to Atlanta, where Man of Tomorrow, the follow-up to 2025’s Superman, is currently in production. “He came to Trilith [Studios] already. That’s where we shoot all our movies that James directs,” Winther told The Hollywood Reporter. “He came to Atlanta, we showed him everything, and we’re having discussions with him.”

After Netflix declined to raise its bid for WBD, and Paramount and WBD agreed to move forward to the tune of a $111 billion megadeal, questions arose about Gunn and Safran’s future at the helm of DC Studios. According to Winther, Ellison is currently interested in the duo’s work and slate, which, when announced in 2023, included 10 titles. “He’s pretty open to what we’re doing. We do have a slate and a lot of it — obviously, Clayface is already coming out. We already have the Lanterns TV show. On those things, the train’s left the station. So we’re good. But he’s a big fan, he’s been great with us. He’s giving us kind of what we want. So far, everything’s good.”

As for where that slate will take them once the Milly Alcock-led Supergirl lands in theaters on June 26, Winther points to several announced titles and what will follow 2027’s Man of Tomorrow.

“Supergirl we shot in London. Clayface was in London. We started shooting Batman 2 about a week and a half ago in London,” the EP said. “Man of Tomorrow, which is what we’re shooting now, [Alcock] is in that movie. Without giving too much away, this movie ends a particular way, and you see where she’s going to end up. She’s done her wild ways, and now she’s going to try to get back in with her cousin and be more on Earth again. That’s where she is in Man of Tomorrow. It’s all more Earth-based. So we have Man of Tomorrow, and we already know what the next movie’s going to be after that, and she’s a big part of that.”

That transition between Supergirl’s more intergalactic-set story and Superman’s (led by David Corenswet) Earth-bound narrative was a major reason why Kara Zor-El was selected to front the next big DC universe film.

“We’re trying to build our DCU and that Superman family, that’s the main reason we went there. That comic is also based on the Woman of Tomorrow. We love that comic, and we haven’t seen a Supergirl movie in a long time,” Winther said. “We are not just trying to do what the previous regime did and dig in about the same characters. We are trying to get some of the newer characters in. So we want to base it with Superman and felt that [Kara] was the next best character to build that story. Also, that comic is intergalactic, which is where we wanted to go with it. Now you have an Earth story and an intergalactic story, so we’re starting to see what the larger DC universe looks like.”

While Kara will appear in future DC films, Supergirl director Craig Gillespie confirms that this latest chapter isn’t merely a lead-in to something down the pipeline. “It is a standalone film. That was what was amazing — when I first met James, he was like, ‘We are treating each of these as their own graphic novel. This is your graphic novel,’” the director recalled. “It was both intimidating and exhilarating to not have any railings on this of where we could go with it. So I really leaned into this as a character story and went on this journey. I do think the journey’s not complete, so I would love to see how she keeps exploring her own journey. So we’ll see.”

It’s also a film that, unlike many of its modern superhero counterparts, runs around an hour and 48 minutes ,as Gillespie says, “I hate a long film.” He explained, “Because it’s this road trip between two women [Alcock and co-star Eve Ridley], and it’s very specific about their goals and where they’re getting to and going through their trauma, it just ended up landing there. The more that we kept it lean and true to just their mission, the better the film was. There is a ticking clock in this.”

“We trimmed some scenes,” added Winther. “We just wanted the audience to be on a ride right from the get-go.”

That ride is based on the Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes co-created comic Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and serves as “the origin story of Krypton. We didn’t do that in Superman. You see the demise of Krypton through [Kara’s] eyes, which is different,” said Winther. “She didn’t leave Krypton when she was a baby like Superman. She left when she was like 12, 13 years old. There’s definitely some emotional stuff here because she’s leaving when she’s close to her parents, and she sees their demise.”

Alcock thinks that “this story is really going to connect with a lot of different people. In the world in which we live, we can feel incredibly powerless over what is happening around us. There’s a real optimism within this story that hopefully audiences can walk away and feel as though they can take back control or work through events within their own lives to become the person that they want to become. It’s okay to be flawed, she’s not an image of perfection. I think that a lot of these films can tell us who we are, but I think Kara shows us who we are. I think that’s really refreshing.”

Gillespie, who also directed I, Tonya and Cruella, added that Supergirl will offer a different kind of female-fronted superhero narrative, and that difference will help make it more widely relatable. “What I was honestly most excited about in this film is how complex this character is. It’s so often, particularly with female superhero films, there’s a sense of perfection. Perfectly made-up, everything in place. In this, you see a complicated, flawed person who’s going through trauma and doesn’t have all the answers and is accepting of who she is. It’s so much more exciting to me to portray and to relate to,” he said. “We get to see ourselves in that person as opposed to something unattainable. That was what I was truly excited about. Then to make her be a hot mess and unapologetic about it, and just true to herself? And to James and Pete’s credit, they let us lean into that.”

Supergirl flies into theaters on Friday.