1996 was a fascinating year for independent and low-budget filmmaking. Visionary writer/directors were making big splashes in arthouse cinemas, film festivals and even major theaters. Filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson had made names for themselves with groundbreaking movies, and leveraged their success into studio-backed films.
That same year, a 30-year-old screenwriter named James Gunn also saw the release of his first feature film — Tromeo & Juliet — for which he was reportedly paid just $150 as a credited writer. Troma Entertainment is a production and distribution company best known for its over-the-top gore, outrageous parodies, frequent nudity, and unapologetic B-movie style. Much like the low-budget, fast-paced productions of Roger Corman, Troma films have served as a launchpad for several now-prominent actors and filmmakers, including Kevin Costner, Oliver Stone, J.J. Abrams, and James Gunn.
Gunn worked on several other Troma Entertainment movies before he made his dent in Hollywood in 2000 with an uncredited rewrite on Thir13en Ghosts followed by 2002’s Scooby-Doo. Regardless of whether he was inspired by the campy, self-aware films of his early career or his personality drew him to making these types of movies, they have impacted how he now tells stories and creates memorable characters.
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","img":{"alt":"Nathan Fillion stands in his white and blue uniform as Edi Gathegi levitates in his chair and Isabela Merced flaps her hawkish wings in Superman","height":475,"src":"https://200838.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/200838/Nathan%20Fillion%2c%20Edi%20Gathegi%2c%20and%20Isabela%20Merced%20in%20Superman.png","width":840},"link_url":{"no_follow":false,"open_in_new_tab":true,"rel":"noopener","sponsored":false,"url":{"content_id":null,"href":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950044/?ref_=ttmi_ov_bk","href_with_scheme":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950044/?ref_=ttmi_ov_bk","type":"EXTERNAL"},"user_generated_content":false}}]{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_objects" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}[]{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"NOT_SMART"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "wrap_field_tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"div"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% end_module_block %}Indie Darling to Big Budget Director
Everyone starts somewhere. For many filmmakers in the 1980s and 1990s, the start of a career was in commercials and music videos. Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, Tony Scott and Ridley Scott all made their marks in 30-60 second ads or MTV music videos before becoming blockbuster filmmakers. But with independent filmmakers gaining notoriety in the 1990s and early 2000s, the studios were finding new directors with fresh voices.
- Colin Trevorrow’s first feature film was a $750,000 budgeted Safety Not Guaranteed in 2012 before being handed the keys to Jurassic World ($150 million budget) in 2015.
- Greta Gerwig was an indie darling both in front of and behind the camera who was nominated for 3 Academy Awards (2 x Lady Bird, 1 x Little Women) before making the biggest hit of 2024, Barbie.
- Lee Isaac Chung was nominated for writing and directing his $2 million independent film Minari in 2020 and followed it up with Twisters, a $155 million budgeted summer tentpole.
- Jon Watts had plenty of experience in music videos and short films. In 2015, he co-wrote and directed an $800,000 indie called Cop Car. His next film would be the Marvel blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming.
James Gunn cut his teeth with a similar route. While he was involved with bigger studio movies like Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed and Dawn of the Dead, he was directing smaller films like Slither and the superhero-styled Super.
It was his unique style and vision for Guardians of the Galaxy that took his career to the next level. Guardians of the Galaxy stood out as a change in tone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe taking an obscure group of comic book heroes and turning them into bankable entities. Gunn does the same with Superman, adding his flavor of unique and memorable supporting characters, and placing them inside the world of the hero.
Superman isn’t Gunn’s first step in DC. Between writing and directing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, he made Suicide Squad for DC and also had a hand in creating Peacekeeper, a DC TV series for HBO Max, based off one of the characters from Suicide Squad.
What Gunn excels at is giving those side characters more than just a supporting role. Even given their small amounts of screen time, audiences can tell there’s a developed backstory and that each one is the hero of their own story. Gunn has set up a successful path for the DC Universe; you not only sense many of the characters can have their own movie, you almost now expect it.
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For the longest time, Christopher Reeve was the model for Superman. He did 4 movies in the span of 9 years and became a figure like Michael Keaton to Batman – an actor so ingrained with the character that no one could surpass this idea of the superhero.
It was almost 20 years after Superman IV: The Quest for Peace in 1987 before there was a new movie: Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh as Superman, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luther and directed by Bryan Singer. It did fine in theaters and people seemed to enjoy it but it didn’t take off internationally, so Warner Bros. scrapped the sequel.
Then came Zack Snyder and the Man of Steel with Henry Cavill. This was DC’s answer to the expanding MCU. But it just didn’t match the mood of superhero expectations. Christopher Nolan had completed his Dark Knight films and DC seemed plagued with problems. Say what you want about Snyder’s vision and the DC Expanded Universe (DCEU), which included Aquaman, Black Adam, Shazam, The Flash and Wonder Woman, it just wasn’t landing. Perhaps audiences had superhero fatigue – Marvel was experiencing the same post-COVID issues of getting people to the theaters.
Now, Gunn and Peter Safran, Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer of DC Studios, have plans of building the DC Universe (DCU) and it looks like it’s a completely new direction away from Warner Bros.’ film noir brand. It starts with the first scene of the movie - a bruised and beaten Superman whistling for his dog. This immediately sets apart the Superman of the past: Superman is hurt? He has a comedically crazy dog? Robots as caretakers?
As the writer of two Scooby-Doo movies, Gunn knows how to work dogs into the narrative. There is also sarcasm, one-liners, action in the background (a Gunn staple) and a certain campiness that harkens back to the Troma days. Superman needed a change and Gunn is tasked with bringing his flavor to the franchise.
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","img":{"alt":"David Corenswet shields a young girl from the debris of a falling building in Superman","height":475,"src":"https://200838.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/200838/David%20Corenswet%20in%20Superman.png","width":840},"link_url":{"no_follow":false,"open_in_new_tab":true,"rel":"noopener","sponsored":false,"url":{"content_id":null,"href":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950044/?ref_=ttmi_ov_bk","href_with_scheme":"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5950044/?ref_=ttmi_ov_bk","type":"EXTERNAL"},"user_generated_content":false}}]{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_objects" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}[]{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"NOT_SMART"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "wrap_field_tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"div"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% end_module_block %}A Man Who Needs No Introduction
There have been several Superman origin stories so the idea of introducing him in this new one is thrown out the window. Gunn doesn’t seem to have time for long introductions anyway, and not because everyone knows who Superman is and how he ended up on earth. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill’s origin story is a couple minutes and it’s him running from a hospital where his mom is dying of cancer. Maybe we don’t need to know where superheroes come from, we just need to know that they’re here.
Gunn also had to tackle a problem that long plagued Superman: how to make a flawless, god-like character someone we can empathize with and relate to.
“I didn’t want a Superman that could make The Flash, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Green Lantern irrelevant. Superman is often portrayed as a god. I don’t think our Superman is a god,” Gunn said to NPR. He adds, “We go into the movie wanting to be Superman. And I think that by the end of the movie, we realize that Superman wants to be us. He wants to be a human being. That is his biggest desire.”
From ‘Tromeo & Juliet’ to ‘Superman’
In 1997, Gunn had already seen his first feature film produced and was working on 2 short films.
In that same year, Nicolas Cage was given a $20 million pay-or-play contract for Tim Burton’s Superman Lives. That never happened and the search for the next Superman continued.
Since then, the world has seen several iterations of the Superman character, both on TV and in film, and it was never a foregone conclusion that a scrappy young filmmaker making Troma movies would be a co-chair and co-CEO of the DCU and responsible for bringing a beloved superhero back to the big screen. Superman is Gunn’s vision for the superhero future, but it took finding his voice in the past to be able to lay out a new direction for a film franchise with high expectations.