What James Gunn’s Burgeoning DC Studios Can Learn From the Late Arrowverse

It’s the end of an era and the start of a new one for DC Comics. Dec. 2 saw the series finale of “Superman & Lois,” the last show standing from the CW’s shared universe of DC titles colloquially known as the Arrowverse.

Three days later, the animated show “Creature Commandos” premiered on Max, marking the official kickoff of DC Studios, the restructured Warner Bros. Discovery subsidiary co-led by James Gunn and Peter Safran that was created to give the DC Universe a much-needed reset across big and small screens.

And today brings the first glimpse of the upcoming “Superman” movie, set to open on July 11 as the prodco’s first theatrical foray under its new leadership.

The end of the Arrowverse marks the first time in over 12 years a DC superhero isn’t on the CW’s roster. While early viewership figures for “Creature Commandos” suggest a promising start to DC’s new chapter, the Arrowverse’s small-screen legacy, inconsistent as it was, offers a crucial lesson that Gunn, Safran & Co. would be wise to remember going forward.

As the nickname suggests, the Arrowverse began with the debut of “Arrow” in 2012, which led to the spinoff “The Flash” in 2014 and “Supergirl” the following year. The Arrowverse became the definitive shared onscreen universe for fans as DC (and Zack Snyder) struggled to replicate the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s formula for its own films.

But the Arrowverse’s ambition eventually led to it collapsing under its own weight. The 20-plus-episode seasons, ever-growing list of characters and increasingly convoluted plotlines made the shows too daunting and inaccessible for new and casual viewers.

While the CW’s new ownership and program overhaul, plus the formation of DC Studios and other shakeups at WBD, were the corporate nails that sealed the Arrowverse’s coffin, TV ratings data shows that not a single show managed to surpass the average viewership of their respective first seasons.

It’s worth noting that cable TV overall was reeling from the rise of SVOD in the mid-2010s, and the Arrowverse shows were one of the many traditional TV offerings that found sizable audiences on Netflix. But that streaming viewership for older seasons didn’t carry over into the new ones on TV, all while reviews for later Arrowverse seasons were an increasingly mixed bag.

Ultimately, the Arrowverse fizzled out, with unplanned cancellations and mostly no meaningful viewership boosts for the shows that did get a proper ending. Ratings for the series finale of “Superman & Lois” haven’t been released, but it’s at least been critically well received.

That context leads to the biggest lesson for DC Studios: Prioritize quality over continuity. Later seasons of "The Flash” and especially “Arrow” suffered the most from using screentime for setting up future larger plotlines and crossovers, leading to dense and convoluted storytelling.

In the announcement video for DC Studios, Gunn detailed ambitious plans for a more interconnected, mixed-media DC Universe, spanning animated and live-action shows, films and even video games. This inevitably presents the risk of running into the connectivity issues that plagued the Arrowverse and, more recently, the MCU.

The launch of DC Studios and the debut of “Creature Commandos” isn’t a fully clean break from the past: Gunn’s own show “Peacemaker” and Matt Reeves’ “The Penguin,” which are respective spinoffs of films “The Suicide Squad” and “The Batman,” as well as fan-favorite animated shows “Harley Quinn” and “My Adventures With Superman,” all predate DC Studios and will seemingly continue even if they muddle the overall continuity.

As Gunn himself put it, “The audience is smart enough” to watch and enjoy these shows without getting hung up where it fits in the greater universe. While “Creature Commandos” and “Peacemaker” stories are loosely tied to the events of “Suicide Squad,” both provide enough context for casual viewers to keep up without hindering the overall flow.

So far, this new approach seems to be paying off: The current DC shows on Max, now including “Creature Commandos,” all enjoyed growing audiences thanks to strong reviews and positive word of mouth.

“The Penguin,” in particular, pulled in 2.1 million views for its finale after gradually climbing in viewership with every episode, making it the third most watched debut season for an HBO or Max original, while the season finale of “Peacemaker” set a single-day viewership record for Max at the time.

“Creature Commandos” is only a few episodes into its season, but watch-time data from Luminate shows a promising start for DC Studios. While “Peacemaker” brought in the most watch time over its season run, “Creature Commandos” is currently outpacing “The Penguin” in terms of minutes watched for their respective first three weeks. (Peak viewership for “The Penguin” came in the season’s later half.).

Per Luminate, “Creature Commandos” was also the third most watched show on Max for the first full week following its release (22.4 million minutes for Dec. 6-12), placing it just behind “The Penguin” (71 million minutes) and “The Sex Lives of College Girls” (27.6 million minutes). The show’s performance thus far isn’t breaking any records, but it does show that a fresh take on a DC property that isn’t focused on setting up future installments is intriguing enough for viewers.

Ultimately, the biggest test of whether DC Studios has learned from the Arrowverse’s sins will be the upcoming “Superman” film, written and directed by Gunn. With some key advantages over the late Arrowverse — namely bigger budgets and freedom from the confines of broadcast TV — as well as Gunn’s solid track record at Marvel, it seems like DC Studios is on the cusp of a bigger and hopeful new phase.