James Gunn at the Superman World Premiere in Los Angeles, California. Photo / Getty Images
His hit reboot is meant to kick off years of new projects from the rebranded DC Studios. But for a long time, James Gunn couldn’t figure out the character.
“Today I have my wits about me,” James Gunn said. “I was going to die yesterday, I was so tired.”
It was two weeks before the release of Superman, and I had met Gunn at the film’s Los Angeles press junket, just one stop on the director’s whirlwind, worldwide media tour. At the time, he was hopeful that the movie would connect with audiences, and it certainly has: Superman opened mid-July with US$125 million ($208m) at the US box office and earned an A- CinemaScore from audiences.
Still, that success barely affords Gunn the opportunity to sleep any easier. “Because this is our first DC movie and I’m also the head of the studio,” he said, “I haven’t had a day off work for months.”
Best known for directing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Gunn was initially lured to DC Studios in 2018, when Marvel fired the film-maker over resurfaced tweets. Though he was eventually rehired to finish the Guardians trilogy, his work on DC projects like The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker impressed Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who tapped Gunn to run DC Studios alongside producer Peter Safran.
“I’ve always had this desire to create a fictional universe,” said Gunn, 58. “I got hints of that with Guardians and the cosmic universe of Marvel, but since I took on DC I knew that I was just going to have to go crazy for the first few years.” That commitment meant juggling many major projects simultaneously: At one point, Gunn was filming both Superman (with David Corenswet in the title role) and the second season of Peacemaker (starring John Cena and Gunn’s wife, Jennifer Holland) while also overseeing forthcoming DC projects like the film Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, out next year from director Craig Gillespie.
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
Q: You’ve said that Superman is the toughest movie you’ve ever made.
A: Without a doubt. The other tough one was the first Guardians, because it’s creating a different type of tone than we’re used to seeing in movies, and there’s a lot of uncertainty around that.
Q: What felt like the toughest tonal tightrope to walk with this material?
A: Well, Superman is not the sort of character I usually deal with. In the past, the story I usually tell is about somebody who’s a troubled soul, and little by little they discover something good about themselves. That isn’t true about Superman. This is almost the opposite: he’s a purely good, untroubled soul who finds out something troubling and has to deal with that. And he’s not cynical – he’s unironic; he’s authentic; he’s good-natured.
Q: So when you were first pitched Superman by Warner Bros., did you resist?
A: I said no. I was offered it in 2018 by [former Warner Bros. head] Toby Emmerich. Toby talked to Peter Safran – they work out in the gym together – and he said, “James Gunn Superman, James Gunn Superman.” Peter was crazy about it, and he called me up, and I was like, “I don’t know what to do with Superman. What else?” And he said, “Well, we really need a Suicide Squad sequel.” I was so jealous of David Ayer when they did the first Suicide Squad [in 2016] because that was one of my favourite comics, so I jumped at that and didn’t do Superman because that was more up my alley.
Q: Throughout all the superhero films you’ve made so far, you’ve shown a preference for the deep-cut character. Superman has several of those, including Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and even Krypto the superdog, a character you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in a movie like this.
A: Yes. I loved Mister Terrific in the comic books; I loved putting him in the movie. I love the idea that now everybody all over the world knows who Krypto is. That’s incredible to me. People love the dog.
Q: You like taking somebody from the margins and bringing them into the spotlight, but Superman is the furthest thing from a deep-cut character. Is that part of what gave you pause?
A: There’s a couple reasons. It’s easier for me to write edgier characters, and that’s what I had to find out about Superman: He does have edge; it’s just different than I perceive it. And then the other thing is that with these comic book heroes, everybody has an idea about what Batman and Superman are supposed to be, but I can take a character like Groot and make him exactly what I want him to be. There’s maybe five people that are complaining that he’s changed from the comic books.
With Superman, you can’t do that. There are certain things that seem like a part of Superman that you just can’t get rid of and then a few other things that people either hate or love, like the trunks. You can’t go right with the trunks because 40% of the people hate the trunks, and 60% of the people think you need the trunk, so it becomes a big thing.
Q: Why did you eventually think Superman would be right for you?
A: Because it didn’t leave my brain after that. It became this thought experiment: How would I do Superman? How could I do Superman? I think that little by little, it started to become clear over years. That’s how my brain works all the time anyway. I’m constantly thinking about how would I do a Western that would work; how would I do a musical? And so this was, how would I do Superman?
Q: Eventually, you did decide to work on Superman, but this was before you took over DC Studios. Once you accepted the studio gig, did the way you conceived the film change?
A: No, it didn’t change. It just became more important and [carried] more pressure. It was one of the hardest times in my life because I wrote Superman, and then I did everything I could to finish writing Peacemaker before I started heavy preproduction on Superman. We went away for New Year’s Eve to Hawaii with all of our friends, and I literally just sat in the hotel room the whole time writing Peacemaker. Jen was like, “You’ve got to come out.” I’m like, “Do you want me to make your TV show or not?”
Q: Does it feel like Superman is contextualised in an interesting way because it’s coming out this year?
A: I think there is a bolstering of the film and an excitement for the film because of how badly people feel about the world. That actually kind of sucks, to know that people are excited for your movie because they feel bad about their lives. Certain things you feel grateful for: Thank God that Isabela Merced was in The Last of Us so that she can help sell this movie. But then I’m not exactly saying thank God for the fact that people feel so bad about the world that they need Superman.
Q: One person who decidedly doesn’t need Superman is Lex Luthor. I was surprised at first that he has so many people working with him who agree that Superman should be killed.
A: But also imagine if an alien came to our planet. You don’t think people would think, “We’ve got to kill that guy”? There would definitely be a faction of people that are like, “This is a total danger; I don’t trust that guy.” In Lex’s case – and I love the character of Lex – he is somebody who is the smartest person in the world, and then this guy comes along wearing a clown costume who’s incredibly handsome and has a cocky grin. Suddenly, this guy’s the greatest guy in the world. It’s not Lex Luthor; it’s Superman.
And [Luthor] took that and rationalised that he’s protecting humanity because he’s going to kill this guy and that his jealousy is a God-given calling to do something. He’s just totally manipulated the way his feelings work to rationalise his ill behaviour. But I also get it. He doesn’t want to be obsolete.
Q: Nicholas Hoult originally auditioned for Superman. How did he come to play Lex?
A: Nic just wasn’t this Superman, but he was such a good actor, and I liked working with him so much. Actually, the whole time he was doing it, I kept thinking, “This guy might be Lex Luthor.” I originally thought Lex was going to be a little bit older, but I saw Nic, and he just fit what I saw in my head. I thought about it a little bit after he left and called him up and I said, “Dude, I’m sorry it didn’t work out. How would you feel about playing Lex?”
And he just started laughing because the whole time he was reading the script, he was like, “I think I might be better for that guy than Superman.” He said it to his agent, Billy Lazarus, and Billy was like, “Shut up. Don’t say that to anyone. Try to get Superman.” But the funny part is, Billy saw the movie, and he was so happy. He called me up and said, “Thank you so much for giving Nic the role he was born to play.”
Q: Krypto the superdog is a major character in this movie, but you were adamant that you wanted to use CGI and not cast a real dog. Why?
A: I’m really careful about those things because I don’t think it’s always fair to animals or to children to be on sets. I think it’s especially difficult to saddle children with fame, which is something that so many people in our world desire, though so few people that have it think it’s of any use to us whatsoever.
Q: How do you feel about your own fame? You’ve been front and centre during this press tour. Do you get recognised a lot?
A: Yeah. Always, and since the white hair has come, it’s more.
Q: Is that kind of fame something you wanted when you were younger?
A: Hugely. I’m getting what I wanted all those years, but my attitude toward it has changed. I come from a very dysfunctional family, and I think I wanted to be famous so I could find a way that people would love me. Over the years, I’ve learned it doesn’t make you feel that – it just makes you feel worse. You get a lot of attention, and it can be invigorating, but it also doesn’t feel like anything.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Kyle Buchanan
Photographs by: Alana Paterson
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