Warner Bros. Restructures Its Executives and Makes Geoff Johns a Much Bigger Part of The DCEU

Whether you're a defender of the movie or not, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a big disappointment to the executives at Warner Bros. The mostly negative response from both critics and audiences took the company by surprise, and since the film's release, we've been hearing about some small changes they've made to hopefully get back on track: they made Ben Affleck an executive producer on Justice League, parted with Seth Grahame-Smith on The Flash in order to find a more experienced director, they have a more lighthearted Booster Gold movie in the works, did heavy reshoots on Suicide Squad to improve the ending, and just yesterday they announced a Harley Quinn/female-centric spinoff. But now the biggest change of all has occurred: a shakeup at the executive level, which means that the studio is really taking this problem seriously and legitimately making strides toward doing something about it.

THR has the details, which include a restructuring of duties for execs, who will now handle specific "genre streams" instead of oversee the studio's entire film slate:

Courtenay Valenti, for example, will now oversee all Lego projects as well as the Harry Potter line that begins with November's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Senior production execs Jesse Ehrman and Niija Kuykendall will focus more on comedy/family and sci-fi/action, respectively, according to sources.

But the change you're probably most interested in comes with the formation of a new division called DC Films, which will be co-run by executive VP Jon Berg and DC's Creative Operations Officer Geoff Johns, who is still co-writing the standalone Batman film with Affleck. Berg was already in charge of BvS, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, and Justice League, but now he'll have Johns' help in guiding these and future DC projects to the big screen. That's great news for fans of these iconic comic book characters, since Johns knows them incredibly well (in addition to his new duties, he's launching Rebirth on the comics side of DC Entertainment). Many are comparing this duo to WB/DC's version of Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige, and if there's anything the DCEU movies desperately need right now, it's strong leadership from someone who has a clear understanding of the characters.

I think DC movie fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief, because it seems as if their favorite properties are finally in good hands.