Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow seems poised to get DC back on track in 2027, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told Wall Street analysts Thursday.
Director and DC co-chief James Gunn “is focused on Man of Tomorrow,” Zaslav said when asked about any revision to DC’s strategy in the wake of Supergirl. “I saw some pictures yesterday that looked amazing. Actually, yesterday was James’s birthday, and he’s out working. He’s working 16, 18 hours a day. It looks fantastic. We’re super excited about it.”
Supergirl melted down in June, grossing just $126 million worldwide. The box office result dinged WBD’s overall performance in the second quarter, with already difficult comparisons with Warner Bros’ stellar 2025 winding up even tougher than expected.
Zaslav’s background is in the TV business, spanning long tenures at NBC and Discovery Communications prior to WBD being created via a merger in 2022. As a relative newcomer to the movie business, he has frequently hyped forthcoming releases, famously telling analysts he “loved” The Flash in 2023. “It’s a wow,” he said of the DC title, but the film wound up flopping later that year.
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On Thursday’s earnings call, the CEO also said he recently spoke with Matt Reeves, who is “working very hard” on the long-gestating followup to The Batman.
With Clayface and Lanterns also on its upcoming slate, DC “feels very good,” Zaslav affirmed. He installed Gunn and Peter Safran as co-chairmen and CEOs of DC in 2022, tasking them with improving the comic book unit. The 2025 Superman was a crowning moment for the executives, along with hit series like The Penguin.
“We have a robust pipeline, and Peter and James are hard at work,” Zaslav said.
Widening the lens from DC to address the overall motion picture business at WBD, Zaslav said the company will release 14 films this year, increasing to 19 in 2027. Paramount, which is aiming to acquire WBD in a $110 billion deal currently held up in antitrust litigation, has said it would guarantee at least 30 releases a year by Paramount and Warner Bros., seeking to allay fears of a legacy major studio vanishing as part of the merger.
“We’re very confident that we’re gonna be able to maintain that larger number,” Zaslav said of the projected 2027 increase. “We have the unique benefit of a great creative team, great relationships in the creative communities, and an enormous amount of IP.”
Next year, Warner will have a new Lord of the Rings installment and Minecraft 2, along with the Batman and Superman followups. Zaslav said the company is committed to “our overall philosophy of making sure that we bring the motion picture to the market when the film is ready.” As a result, he observed, “we’re a little light on those tentpoles. We do have Cat in the Hat coming. We got Practical Magic. Um, and we, we think the back end of the year is gonna be good for us, but when you compare that with, with what we have coming next year, and the amount of tent poles, if we had to do it, we would have kind of spread those a little bit more over this year and next year.”
