When it comes to superhero films, it seems like James Gunn isn’t a fan of his contemporaries. With Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 proving to be a success at the box office and The Flash fizzling out (along with quite a few DC and MCU entries of late), Gunn seems to have figured out what’s gone wrong with the genre and how to bring in viewers.
Let’s hope that pays off with his upcoming DC Studios slate, being crafted alongside co-chair Peter Safran. But in the meantime, the filmmaker is dishing on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast about the state of comic book movies.
Gunn keeps it candid with Rosenbaum: “People have gotten really lazy with their superhero stories. And they have gotten to the place where, ‘Oh, it’s a superhero; let’s make a movie about it.’ And then, ‘Oh, let’s make a sequel because the first one did pretty well,’ and they aren’t thinking about, ‘Why is this story special? What makes this story stand apart from other stories? What is the story at the heart of it all? Why is this character important? What makes this story different that it fills a need for people in theaters to go see?'”
He continues and focuses on the third act with a lack of stakes. “People have gotten a little lazy, and there’s a lot of biff-pow-bam stuff happening in movies, and I’m watching third acts of superhero films where I really just don’t feel like there’s a rhyme or reason to what’s happening,” Gunn said, adding, “I don’t care about the characters. And they’ve gotten too generic.”
It seems like Gunn wants range with the tones of his DC Universe. “I like very serious superhero movies, and I like very comedic superhero movies,” Gunn said. “I like ones that are a murder mystery, but it’s with superheroes. I like to see these different types of stories, as opposed to seeing the same story told over and over again.”
The filmmaker and DC Studios co-chair is currently prepping Superman: Legacy, which has just cast David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as Clark Kent and Lois Lane respectively.
