James Gunn is putting an end to the assumption that “Superman” is expected to be a box office hit. The writer/director, who is also the co-head of DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, told GQ that the Tentpole Franchise film doesn’t have as much pressure on the studio as critics believe.
“Is there anything to it? Yes, but it’s not as big as people make it out to be,” Gunn said. “They hear these numbers that the movie will only be successful if it makes $700 million or something, and it’s just complete and utter nonsense. It doesn’t have to be as big as people are saying.”
He added that the “Superman” reboot “wasn’t the riskiest venture in the world.” David Corenswet stars as the superhero in the title character of the film, which had a reported budget in the $200 million range, as Variety stated. “Superman” opens in theaters on July 11 from Warner Bros. and DC Studios.
Gunn recently promoted “Superman” as a truly patriotic film, telling The Times that the plot embodies “the story of America.”
“I mean, ‘Superman’ is the story of America,” Gunn said. “An immigrant who came from other places and populated the country, but to me it’s primarily a story that says that basic human kindness is a value and it’s something we’ve lost. It’s about human kindness, and obviously there will be idiots out there who are not kind and will find it offensive just because it’s about kindness. But they will be screwed.”
He added: “Yes, it’s about politics. But on another level, it’s about morality. Do you never kill, no matter what – which is what Superman believes – or do you have some balance, like Lois believes?
Gunn further told Rolling Stone that, unlike Disney’s MCU, WBD doesn’t have a quota for DCU films. Therefore, “Superman” was only released when it was ready by Gunn’s standards.
“We don’t have a mandate [at DC] to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we’re going to release whatever we think is the highest quality. Obviously, we’re going to do some good stuff and some not-so-good stuff, but I hope that on average, everything is as high-quality as possible,” Gunn said. “Nothing goes until there’s a script that I’m personally happy with.”
And of all the DCU characters, Superman isn’t the most important to the IP’s next phase. “Batman is my biggest issue in all of DC right now, personally,” Gunn said. “I’m not writing ‘Batman,’ but I’m working with the ‘Batman’ writer [Matt Reeves] and trying to get it right, because he’s incredibly important to DC, as is Wonder Woman. So outside of the things I’m doing on the projects that are actively going, our two priorities are finishing our ‘Wonder Woman’ scripts and our ‘Batman’ scripts.”
