{"id":78488,"date":"2025-07-20T17:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T17:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78488\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T17:05:09","slug":"director-james-gunn-shares-secrets-of-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78488\/","title":{"rendered":"Director James Gunn Shares Secrets of the Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cI wanted a Superman<\/a> who could be beaten,\u201d Superman writer\/director and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn<\/a> told Rolling Stone before the release of his film. David Corenswet\u2019s Kal-El does take more than his share of punches in the film, but he turns it around in the end \u2014\u00a0and the movie itself is flying to its own triumphs at the box office. \u201cThose weekday numbers have been incredible,\u201d Gunn says.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust after a press tour that took him around the world, Gunn joined Rolling Stone by Zoom for a follow-up to his recent Rolling Stone Interview<\/a>. It was\u00a0a spoilers-and-all conversation that digs into the film\u2019s plot twists, the future of the DCU, and more. (Again, spoilers ahead: If you haven\u2019t seen Superman yet, click away.)<\/p>\n

\n\tSo the point of the movie, in some ways, is Superman\u2019s \u201cmaybe that\u2019s the real punk rock\u201d\u00a0 line. <\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah! I do think that\u2019s the point of the movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd I was thinking that in casting David, one of the main things you needed was someone who could get a line like that across.<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTell me about writing that scene, which of course also takes place with the Justice Gang battling the \u201cdimensional imp\u201d in the background. <\/strong>
<\/strong>I liked the idea of doing something where we showed the magic of this world being treated as ordinary. And in some ways it\u2019s not dissimilar from the beginning of Guardians 2, where we\u2019re focused on baby Groot dancing when there\u2019s this whole other thing going on behind him \u2014\u00a0but done with romance instead of poppy fun in that respect. It didn\u2019t change very much in the writing of it. It came out pretty clearly. The punk-rock thing was in the very first draft. I don\u2019t remember if I thought of that line before I wrote the scene or not. I\u2019m going to guess that, yeah, I probably did, but I can\u2019t remember for sure. I will also give a shout-out to John Murphy\u2019s score in the scene, which is incredibly helpful for setting the tone.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the way, would you want people to think that the imp might be the comic book character Mr. Mxyzptlk, who fits that description?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Oh, no. He\u2019s just a stupid basic imp. He\u2019s nowhere near as powerful as Mr. Mxyzptlk.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then of course the punk-rock line ties in with a song I\u2019ve been hearing a lot now on TikTok, the Teddybears\u2019 \u201cPunkrocker,\u201d featuring Iggy Pop. How did that come into the picture for the ending?<\/strong>
<\/strong>It just came up on my Spotify through my algorithm. I didn\u2019t know the song. And it just stuck with me. It\u2019s funny because one of my director friends, who I showed the movie to in an earlier cut for notes, was Jason Reitman. And Jason is like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s one of my favorite songs in the world. I\u2019ve always wanted to use that in a movie.\u201d And so when I wrote that line, I think I thought back to that song and knew that would really work well. And I just liked how the ending juggled all these different pieces of the movie in a way where we showed that the real punk rock was him, his dad, all the way to the shot of the dad making the baby fly. I\u2019m getting touched now, just bringing it up. He flies because of his parents.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then you have the mention of this fictional pop-punk band the Mighty Crabjoys, which spawns the poster in Clark\u2019s childhood room and the song that you co-wrote for the end credits. How does a thing like that evolve?<\/strong>
<\/strong>When I was writing the scene of her looking around in his room, it was initially more just about the childhood of it all. The moment for me in that scene that\u2019s the most potent is actually not the poster. It\u2019s her seeing his parents being so sweet to him. And for me, that\u2019s a moment in which I think we see Lois understands who he is and maybe even falls in love with him.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s definitely how Rachel Brosnahan plays it.<\/strong>
I think there\u2019s still a part of it that is still part of her that\u2019s skeptical about who he is and his intentions, and when she sees that, she understands why he is the deep, loving soul that he is, and it\u2019s all completely honest.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I was first writing it, I was like, \u201cWhat would he have in there?\u201d I said, \u201cI guess he would have a Mighty Crabjoys poster.\u201d So I put that up, and then in the script it said she stops and looks at it and smiles. But the song at the end was completely not planned. At one point I said to [DC Studios co-CEO] Peter [Safran], maybe we should just do a Mighty Crabjoys song, and I talked to my friend Eric Nally, who\u2019s the lead singer of Foxy Shazam, and I said, \u201cDo you want to write the song with me?\u201d And I literally wrote that song and sang it into my phone the first thing in the morning. It took five minutes and I sang it, and then Eric turned it into the fun song that it is. But on my phone there is a recording of me singing the Mighty Crabjoys, and trying to also sing the background vocals at the same time, because they were funny to me. On the poster one of the Mighty Crabjoys is my godson Mason, because he was visiting on that day and I\u2019m like, \u201cHey, you want to be in this photograph?\u201d And then also on the poster is Lou Lou Safran, who is Peter\u2019s daughter, who also sings for real. She\u2019s actually a musician.<\/p>\n

I think people want to be reassured that there\u2019s a good explanation for why Supergirl<\/a> didn\u2019t tell Superman about his parents. Since she\u2019s presumably more knowledgeable about Krypton.<\/strong>
<\/strong>You\u2019re assuming that everybody on Krypton is the same! And how would she know? She\u2019s younger than him, so she wouldn\u2019t know. She wouldn\u2019t know anything about his parents.<\/p>\n

\n\tFair enough. Did you ever think about a bigger role for her in this film? Or was it always as we see it in the final cut?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah, it was always that. When I took this job, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow [the graphic novel that inspired 2026\u2019s Supergirl] was, like, number one for me of the things I knew I wanted to do. Ana Nogueira just killed the script right away, and saw what I saw in how the comic could be adapted to film, where [Supergirl is] even rougher in the film than she is in the comic, I think.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd obviously Krypto is her companion in that graphic novel, even though he\u2019s still Superman\u2019s dog in the comic book. I presume that\u2019s where you got the idea to make Krypto Supergirl\u2019s dog?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Oh yeah, that\u2019s right. That\u2019s how that came about. Yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou went as far as to want to explain the glasses. Did you feel people needed to understand why there are both dogs and humanoids on Krypton?<\/strong>
<\/strong>No, because I talked to a scientist one time and he said if there are higher life forms on other planets, there\u2019s a good chance that they adapted somewhat similar to us \u2014 that if there are aliens from other planets, they\u2019re probably pretty similar to us. And if that\u2019s true, then it\u2019s probably also true that there could be other kinds of animals that are similar to us. The way the genetics worked was they developed similarly. I don\u2019t know about Beppo the Super-Monkey or Comet the Super-Horse [laughs], but we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

I guess Comet was actually a magic transformation of an Earth creature.<\/strong>
That\u2019s right. Comet was a centaur that was turned into a horse. Beppo, though, was actually from Krypton.<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/strong>
<\/strong>The cat, Streaky, was not. Streaky the Super-Cat.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow important is the mural we see in the Hall of Justice with a bunch of old superheroes on it? Is it just a fun Easter egg or was there a lot of thought about what was put in there and the characters in there?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Oh, there was a ton of thought put into it. A ton of thought.<\/p>\n

\n\tShould people assume that we will be seeing those specific characters? <\/strong>
<\/strong>Not necessarily specifically see all of them, but yes, some of them we already have in the works in different things in different ways.<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you decided whether we\u2019ll see Ultraman again or not?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Maybe.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo shift to <\/strong>Peacemaker<\/strong> Season Two for a second, the trailer suggests a multiverse plot, which has made some fans assume you\u2019re going to directly address his shift from the prior DC film universe, the DCEU, to the current one, the DCU. But that seems to go against what you previously said, which is it will be a much more natural flow.<\/strong>
<\/strong>That\u2019s true. Yes. People are realizing that Peacemaker Season Two is about two dimensions, and that\u2019s really the core of the show. But it\u2019s not as if one of these is old DCEU and one\u2019s DCU. That\u2019s dealt with in a different way, very upfront in a season where most everything in Season One is canon and some things are not. And in fact, I did a podcast with [actors] Steve Agee and Jen Holland. And we did every episode of Peacemaker, and in those episodes, I talk about what\u2019s canon and what\u2019s not. I basically chip off little things from Peacemaker Season One that aren\u2019t canon, like Aquaman. But most of the stuff is canon.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid the original idea for the Jor-El and Lara twist come from your reading of the John Byrne comic run where Krypton was cold and sterile, and Clark embraced Earth over Krypton?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah. Listen, I read that when it came out. I definitely had that in my head. And isn\u2019t it also a little bit in Birthright, too? So I did have the comic background excuse to do it.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven among people who love the movie, there are some who also have enough of a lingering affection for Krypton and the idea of a benign Jor-El and Lara that they\u2019re hoping that will somehow get retconned or revealed as a double-secret trick or something.<\/strong>
<\/strong>They\u2019re shit out of luck!<\/p>\n

The problem is, fundamentally, that would undo the entire emotional arc of the movie, right? <\/strong>
<\/strong>That\u2019s right. That\u2019s the whole point of the movie, that Superman thinks he is doing something because it is his destiny and his Kryptonian parents have set him out to do this thing, and along the way he discovers through the love of the people who are actually his parents that he\u2019s doing these things not because of someone else, but because of himself. It\u2019s like taking accountability in the deepest way possible that his morality is not based on some figure outside of himself, but on his own choices. I think it\u2019s really beautiful in that way, and I\u2019m not gonna change that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd\u00a0 I don\u2019t really even think of Jor-El and Lara as being totally evil. They just have this mindset that humans are less than what they are. We\u2019re sea turtles to them. They\u2019re just trying to keep the Kryptonian genes alive.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople are calling the movie \u201chopecore.\u201d And it did remind me of what George Lucas set out to do with the original Star Wars \u2014\u00a0he wanted to make something positive in the world for kids. And it does feel like you came into this with the same kind of idea.
<\/strong>One thousand percent. Like, I had a dinner with the cast the night before we started shooting, and that\u2019s exactly what I said. That\u2019s what\u2019s driven me with this movie the whole time, is making something about kindness. It is about kindness and goodness more than hope to me. It\u2019s about being loved more than about hope. Hope is something outside of ourselves. We have this belief that maybe something will change in our lives. It almost denigrates the present moment, hope. And it\u2019s not about that. It\u2019s about being loving, being kind, and how that compassion is really the answer to everything. That\u2019s a basic human need.<\/p>\n

\n\tI felt like the squirrel-rescuing moment was actually really key to the film.<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah, although it was probably the second- or third-most hotly debated moment in the movie. Because we showed it to test audiences and some people did not like the squirrel. They\u2019re like, \u201cWhy the fuck is he saving a squirrel? Why is he taking time out, saving a squirrel?\u201d There was a cut where I cut it out and I\u2019m like, \u201cI really miss the squirrel. He\u2019s gotta save the squirrel.\u201d In addition, there were also some geographic problems with where he ended up if I didn\u2019t have him fly over with the squirrel. So I put the squirrel back in despite the protestations of some of my people on my crew.<\/p>\n

\n\tI was surprised that some people thought the movie was too fast-paced. And I wonder if it\u2019s because people have gotten too used to the rhythms of television and to movies cut to the rhythms of television. So I\u2019m curious what you were thinking as far as pacing and energy with this movie.<\/strong>
<\/strong>When you test movies, almost always, especially in the early test screenings, one of the main questions they ask is, \u201cIs it too slow? Is it too fast? Is it just right?\u201d And my movies have always had an overabundance of \u201ctoo fast\u201d compared to \u201ctoo slow.\u201d Because I\u2019m not indulgent. I just don\u2019t give a shit about my little precious moments that are so important to me in making a movie. I want to create something that\u2019s as streamlined as possible, and if that means I go too fast, sometimes I do. And so it really is about pulling back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI felt like the movie was meant to replicate the experience of picking up an issue of a comic book \u2014 and not the first issue.<\/strong>
<\/strong>We\u2019ve created this world, and in that world, we\u2019re picking out a certain place and a certain time. But in the DCU, we can pick out any place in any time. I wanted it to be like a comic book. I wanted it to be like what I experienced as a kid opening up a comic book, and there\u2019s his friends and they\u2019re experiencing all this stuff. Which is something I honestly pretty much ran away from in the Guardians movies. I didn\u2019t want it to be like a comic. I ran away from comic-book-y stuff.<\/p>\n

And the movie that you\u2019re writing now is, what \u2014 a semi-, not-exactly sequel to <\/strong>Superman<\/strong>? Can you clarify?<\/strong>
<\/strong>[Laughs.] I mean, it follows Superman. What am I gonna say? I don\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the quote on this subject? That\u2019s what you\u2019re going with?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah!<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when you see the reaction to this movie, does it inevitably shape what you do next? Or is that something you have to fight, letting the reaction shape it, if you see what I\u2019m saying.<\/strong>
<\/strong>I do totally see what you\u2019re saying. Yes. I think people like Superman because it\u2019s unexpected in certain respects, and I think that what we do next is gonna be unexpected. I just follow that. Listen, do I notice that people love Mr. Terrific and they love Krypto? Yes. I notice those things.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople who\u2019ve read the <\/strong>Woman of Tomorrow<\/strong> graphic novel might have reason to be concerned about Krypto in <\/strong>Supergirl.<\/strong> You cut a scene where Ultraman punches Krypto because it upset audiences. If he can\u2019t be punched in this movie, how do you have a scarier thing happen to him in a <\/strong>Supergirl <\/strong>movie?<\/strong>
<\/strong>Remember, this is a different movie than Supergirl. Supergirl is a way more rock & roll film. It\u2019s a little bit rougher, in certain ways. She\u2019s a tougher character. She\u2019s not Superman at all. And so it\u2019s not the same. This movie really is for everybody. And so is Supergirl, but it\u2019s a little bit edgier in some ways than this film. Mind you,I\u2019ve seen all the dailies, but I haven\u2019t seen the cut. I see it next week, I think. So I\u2019m very excited about that.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tone of this movie is very much a Superman where the 30th-century team the Legion of Super-Heroes could exist. What are your thoughts about that for the DCU?<\/strong>
<\/strong>I\u2019ve thought about it. I\u2019m not a time-travel person. I like science fiction, but time travel\u2019s a rough one for me. I am not into that. I\u2019m not really into teleportation [either]. I have weird things that just aren\u2019t for me. Now, you can say that the pocket universe is teleportation, but I don\u2019t think of it as that. I think of it as traveling from one point in dimensional space to another as opposed to teleporting, which I think of as the person dying and being recreated.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere seems to be a thing where superhero movies, including <\/strong>Superman<\/strong>, maybe are not connecting the same way in international markets that they are domestically. Is there anything to be done about that? Is it just a fact of life now? How do you see that?<\/strong>
<\/strong>We\u2019re definitely performing better domestically than we are internationally, but internationally is also rising and having really good weekday numbers in the same way we are. So obviously the word of mouth is very positive both here and everywhere else. Which is the thing that we needed to do the most. At the same time, there are certain countries in which it\u2019s really performing well. Brazil and the U.K.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSuperman is not a known commodity in some places. He is not a big known superhero in some places like Batman is. That affects things. And it also affects things that we have a certain amount of anti-American sentiment around the world right now. It isn\u2019t really helping us. So I think it\u2019s just a matter of letting something grow. But again, for us, everything\u2019s been a total win. Having the movie come out and be something that has been embraced by people everywhere \u2014 this is just the seed of the tree that Peter and I have been watering for the past three years. So to be able to have it start off so positively has been incredibly overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the U.S., it does seem like you\u2019ve reached beyond the typical superhero audience, to just normal people who just heard there\u2019s a good Superman movie, which is the kind of thing you need to do.<\/strong>
<\/strong>Yeah. Kids, older people. I heard about somebody who went with a bunch of 80-year-old people the other day, and they were all applauding at points in the movie. That\u2019s really cool.They were all fans of the original Superman movie. Some of them were too old for the original Superman movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tI can tell you there was applause at my theater in New York last night when I saw it again.<\/strong>
<\/strong>I\u2019ve heard that all the time. That makes me so happy. Yeah, dude.<\/p>\n

\n\tApplause on a Wednesday night. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.<\/strong>
<\/strong>That\u2019s gonna be the name of my biography.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a report that you are \u201cfast-tracking a Wonder Woman movie.\u201d<\/strong>
<\/strong>I don\u2019t know what they mean by fast-tracking. [Laughs.] I\u2019ve always had Wonder Woman as a priority. But we got the first few things started, and there\u2019s some other things that are really close to green-lighting \u2014 like there\u2019s a television show that I hope that we\u2019re gonna be green-lighting in the next few days. So now a little time has passed, and we really need Wonder Woman and we really need Batman, because they\u2019re so important to us. And so it\u2019s become a little bit more like going to everybody at DC and being like, we need to figure this out. We have good writers on Wonder Woman and we just have to make sure it\u2019s working and they have to not be somebody who\u2019s gonna take two years to write a script.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ll let you go, but I\u2019m looking forward to that prestige Bat-Mite TV show that you\u2019re green- lighting in a couple days.
<\/strong>Yeah, the HBO Bat-Mite show. $150 million an episode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI wanted a Superman who could be beaten,\u201d Superman writer\/director and DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn told Rolling…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":78489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2681,171,956,54221,9180,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-78488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-dc-comics","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-james-gunn","11":"tag-supergirl","12":"tag-superman","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114886654310041840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}