It’s been quite a time watching fake “facts” spread out in real time over the last few days regarding the DC Studios shake-up. A tsunami of YouTube explainers, TikTok takes and website click bait has muddled the water so much that it’s hard to sift out things that actually happened from things that never did.
But that’s what I’m here for.
The hottest rumor right now is that that Skydance is going to sell off DC and its characters in order to pay off its debts. While I haven’t spoken to David Ellison personally, given what I know, I would rate this as a hard NOT TRUE.
The first clue that it is not true is what seems to be the source of the rumor: Crazy Days and Night, a gossip site run by a guy who calls himself Entertainment Lawyer, or Enty. Enty was outed a few years ago by Vulture, and none of his back story was remotely true – he’s just a guy who makes shit up, reads a lot of message boards, and has just enough occasional tipsters to make him look like he might possibly be revealing secrets. (Confession: I read Enty religiously every night because I inevitably fall asleep while reading it. It is my ultimate wind down reading. I just don’t believe it.)
Enty’s entry on DC (posted on Twitter): “The comic studio heads were fired. They didn’t quit. Their boss wants to sell off the entire comic book universe to help get rid of some of that $100B debt.”
The first part was obvious from reading the trades or actually knowing anything about the situation. The second part is definitely someone’s idea of what they want to happen that was probably leaked to Enty. But it makes no sense whatsoever. Skydance is under the gun to make 30 movies a year, as mandated by law, and DC is their crown jewel. They own it completely (unlike Harry P*tter) and they need those Batman and Superman movies to come out and make a lot of money. I can also report, as a regular Enty reader, that his comic book movie rumors are usually either wrong or very uninformed.
Now mind you, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Skydance eventually have a fire sale and spin off some of their assets to lower costs and pay off the debt. But that is a few years away. Also, this whole story is so weird and wacky that ANYTHING could happen. So you can never say never about anything. But this storyline is on very shaky ground.
As flimsy as this rumor was it quickly hit the clickbait sites and reddit and now it’s part of the narrative. In case you are new around here, COSMIC BOOK NEWS and COMIC BOOK MOVIES are not reliable sites. They run a lot of clickbait headlines based on speculation but ginn them up with “insider talk.” Unfortunately people read them, and post them on Reddit, and now we’re off to the races. One story about the supposed DC sale on one of the above sites is an unreadable mish mash that seems to be sourcing the rumor from Page Six, except it isn’t.
One giant game of telephone.
ANOTHER fake fact in the saga came from Variety, which originally reported that Lanterns had been cancelled. But it hasn’t been, so they changed the story, without noting they had changed the story.
View on Threads
Of course, the original story had already caught fire and led to headlines on click bait sites and Reddit claiming Lanterns was cancelled. Another fake fact is now part of the narrative. Although I enjoy my Threads hot takes, users of that site are especially susceptible to rumors and gossip and posting fake AI shit. In short: any time you see a screenshot on threads, VERIFY THE SOURCE. I saw the Variety story shift, so I can verify the above.
A final questionable fact came in in a report on Blding Cl which claimed that DC’s Jim Lee had felt “stymied” by James Gunn and Peter Safran. This “fact” seemed so strange that BC had to run two subsequent stories by a different author pointing out why it was unlikely. Nonetheless, this take also made headlines for content farms.
I’ve asked my own “insiders” about this and they say it’s poppycock, so it’s my insiders against yours. Gunn was the biggest supporter of actual printed DC Comics there was – he would mention books on his social media and they would fly off the shelves. This studio support did not go unnoticed at DC Comics, and Jeremy Latcham already wiped his entire social media presence, so there will be no future sales boosts.
If you want any further proof, just remember this: James Gunn was a guest on the “Jim Lee & Friends” panel at SDCC last year! So they MUST be friends!
I do attribute the “Jim Lee Vs James Gunn” narrative to the same forces who have been flooding the zones with anti-Gunn sentiments all week. It’s part of the way the game is played. And it’s very effective.
Ironically, Bl••ding C••l actually carried water for Ike Perlmutter following his ouster from Marvel Studios, and used to be highly critical of Kevin Feige! If you want a blast from the past, check out my 2016 story Hollywood Mystery: Someone is trying to take Kevin Feige down a notch or two to see how the game used to be played. And it turns out Kevin Feige came out of it just fine.
I realize that by writing this story, in some ways, I’m promulgating these fake facts and just throwing my own log onto the content bonfire. And I have no hope of this story being picked up on Reddit or anywhere else, since I’m just a little comic book site. Fake facts are big business now, and this is just a drop in the bucket. But it still irks me, so maybe, someday, somewhere, someone will read this story and nod their head.
