James Gunn bounced back rather spectacularly after being fired from Marvel years ago. He was fired after some deeply problematic old tweets came out, and he did not go away quietly. Like most white guys who have a track record of making money for the studios, Gunn was given a million second chances. He’s currently 58 years old and the co-CEO of Warner Bros’ DC Studios, and Gunn directed the new Superman movie. Which is why he gave a lengthy interview to Rolling Stone – go here to read. A lot of the superhero and comic-book talk went over my head. It’s fine if that’s your thing, but on Martin Scorsese’s side on that issue – hilariously, Gunn once said that Scorsese was clout-chasing superhero movies. However, Gunn said one thing in this interview which I think is so, so important. Some highlights:
His movie was originally called ‘Superman: Legacy’ and now it’s just Superman: “Yeah. I’m always cutting. “Legacy” was really — we do something called a premortem. A premortem is you get together with your group that’s doing the project. It’s usually about a couple months before shooting, and you go, hypothetically, “If it’s an epic disaster, what are the things that we’re doing today that are going to cause it to be an epic disaster? Everyone here can speak freely.” The things you find on other productions are the things that people are whispering. “Oh, God, I don’t know why they cast that actor — he doesn’t fit the role.” Or, “The production designer’s never on time.” One of the things I brought up was, it was called Superman: Legacy. Even though I was the one that gave it that title, I just wasn’t sure. First of all, I’m sick of the superhero title, colon, other-name thing. And then also it seemed to be looking back when we’re looking forward, even though it does have to do with legacy in the movie itself. And everybody was like, “Oh, yeah, no, change it.”
He was able to crack the Superman story: “It was Krypto. The beginning of the movie is the first thing I wrote, with Krypto coming to Superman in the snow and Krypto taking him home. That really was about the tone of the whole movie. It’s a flying dog who wears a cape, but that led immediately to the robots, to the fortress rising from the ground, to the device that isn’t in the comics — the giant magnifying glass, which powers him up more quickly than just the regular sun would. Bringing all those elements into a Superman movie in a way that hasn’t happened — not to mention that he exists in a world where superheroes, or some form of metahumans, have existed for 300 years. It’s just a different thing.
Eddie Murphy once said that nearly every bad movie happens because of Hollywood’s habit of setting a production date before they have a finished screenplay. “Yeah, totally. Listen, you can do everything right and make a bad movie. I’m really compassionate towards people that put their all into a movie. I know some people that were my former workers at Marvel — people who made some of the worst movies. There were people that were lazy and didn’t put their time in. And then there were other directors that worked really hard and maybe didn’t have the best movie come out, but they did everything they could. But I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies. It’s not because of home screens getting so good. The number-one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay.
I’m soooo glad that someone is saying it outloud and that someone is involved with studio franchises. It’s become a HUGE problem – studios are setting the release date for a film and reverse engineering everything from there, including the script. They know when a production should start but not what the story should be or what the actors are going to say. If you followed the years-long Star Wars-at-Disney saga, the “unfinished screenplay” issue was the biggest problem. That’s basically the reason why they’ve had to put the films on hold for years, because they were making Star Wars movies without completed scripts, without stories locked down in preproduction. The superhero movies have had a similar problem for years – they knew the big setpiece action sequences they wanted and they built the story around those setpieces, even if the stories didn’t make much sense. Finish your scripts before the production starts! This is not hard.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – JUNE 12: American filmmaker and studio executive James Gunn arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Warner Bros. ‘The Flash’ held at the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX on June 12, 2023 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 783131014, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: James Gunn, Credit line: Image Press Agency/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- The Suicide Squad Premiere at the Village Theater on August 2, 2021 in Westwood, CA,Image: 1003894483, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: James Gunn, Credit line: Nicky Nelson/Wenn/Avalon
I will never forget going to see Godzilla in 1998. I paid real money for a movie theatre ticket.
It was unbelievably awful. Then to find out later reading an interview with Dean Devlin. Saying the studio made them release the movie. Since the release date was set but the movie was unfinished.
I have never fully trusted Hollywood since then. I get how valuable some release dates are around holidays. But my Lord the studios have learned nothing. Write, a good script, make a good movie. Wait until it’s ready.
And stop being lazy just recycling IP titles or themes. Since it’s familiar to people. Or if you do, make it fresh and original like Ryan Coogler movie Sinners. We have had a million vampire movies. But that movie is fantastic.
But I am very, very, excited for Superman. I remember when Christopher Reeve’s movies came out in the late 70’s and 80’s. It was a major event movie. Almost each one was great. But we won’t discuss Superman III.
I get that vibe with this Superman movie too. I really hope it’s great and everyone can enjoy and see again and again.
Just make great f’n movies Hollyweird.
I agree with the script issues but as a former screenwriter, I can tell you that lack of scripts (finished or unfinished) isn’t a problem in Hollywood, wanting to invest in a good screenwriter IS.
Unfortunately many producers improvise themselves storytellers and the results are garbage.
100% agree too many bean counters want to be creative. Leave it to the artists not your MBA degree. Same for the music industry. Everyone just has to stick their nose in something they are not qualified for. But they are the ones that greenlight the funds. So they feel entitled to a say.
“wanting to invest in a good screenwriter IS.”
Yes, this! The non-creative investment types think good writers can be replaced by AI. They don’t understand the VALUE of a great script.
It won’t be. Because look at all the other characters they keep announcing in it. Green Lantern and the other supes. There won’t be enough time to actually explore the relationship between Lois and Clark (Superman). All because Gunn is trying to set up all the other movies for the “DC Universe”. They need to just give up right now on the Universe building. And just make a few stand alone good movies. But they won’t because they keep chasing the supposed money.
DC wants to be the MCU but hasn’t looked at how the MCU became the MCU. Feige didn’t start with multiple supes all together. It was just RDJ’s Iron Man against Jeff Bridges and he didn’t interact with any of the others until the end credits of Incredible Hulk when he talks to William Hurt’s Thaddeus Ross in a bar. It was the minor, background characters who linked the films Samuel L Jackson’s Fury, Hurt’s Ross, Leslie Bibb’s reporter, Gary Shandling’s corrupt Senator, Stellan Skarsgard’s Erik Selvig, Clark Gregg’s Coulson, Jon Favreau’s Happy, and Maximiliano Hernandez’s Agent Sitwell who linked 5 films from Iron Man 1 through Captain America, before they all came together in Avengers, and a lot of that linking was done in end credit scenes and Marvel One Shots on the DVDs. Each superhero had a chance to develop a backstory and their own supporting characters and the audience had a chance to choose a favorite. Piecing together the Easter eggs and links was a game for the audience.
DC is just tossing it all out there with no character development and no world development
@Lightpurple I agree with you. But I thought that was the point of James completely rebooting DCU and starting over. Which thankfully got people like Ezra Miller and Zachery Levi to lose their jobs. With casualties of Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot losing their franchises. And debatable, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson not going forward with a Black Adam sequel.
I am hoping James is going into it with a similar plan with Superman. Then build up around it. It seems he has poured everything he has to make Superman a summer blockbuster.
I am already making plans to see it opening weekend myself.
Dean Devlin makes great TV so I’d trust what he says. I enjoy his shows a lot.
What drives me crazy, as someone who went through an aspiring screenwriter phase, is watching a film with a major problem and there is a simple solution from the standard screenwriter’s bag of tricks that could have solved it.
I do think that part of the reason for the popularity of the John Wick films is that Chad and Keanu don’t give the go ahead until they are happy with the script.
In other words, the financials are driving the product (or, the business is driving the art). Glaringly obvious from this story, if we hadn’t known that already.
I think there’s a connection between the elite film schools, how they treat storytelling as primarily an add-on to the art of filmmaking, and how terrifically bad a lot of screen writing is at present. Some of them are starting to address this—realizing their students typically couldn’t find a story with a flashlight and a bucket—but creative writing programs—which teach the elements of narrative and expose young writers to great storytelling throughout history—are still mostly separate from screenwriting classes. I very occasionally get someone interested in writing for film in my classes, but they have to jump through several hoops and receive permission to get into a workshop, often in a separate department. Plus the whole screenplay written by 5-10 different writers, then the studio making their often stupid changes. It’s a miracle to me that any good screenplay makes it on to the screen these days.
The execs want to pump out movies faster than is reasonable. It takes time to write a screenplay. It takes more time to write a good one. Hence the reason for and longevity of the last writer’s strike. The tea leaves are clearly pointing to the execs bringing in AI to write scripts at a speed that will match their revenue models. So effed up.
Another problem with screenplays is that very good screenwriters don’t want to work for Netflix etc anymore because of absolute crap contracts. Both of my parents are screenwriters, and very succesful in my country. It used to be if you came up with an original idea as a screenwriter you owned the copyright, and then production companies could option to make it. Nowadays greedy Netflix and Hollywood want to own the copyright themselves, so they can make a million terrible movies off of someone elses idea. So the writers have to sign away the copyright and are no longer in control of their idea, which means many serious writers just opt out of the movie business and write novels instead.
Many succesful tv-series have been based on novels/ mangas/ comic books stories that are already written because of this. Just think of Game of Thrones.