James Gunn Sounds Off on ‘Really Lazy’ Superhero Movies and Bad Third Acts: There’s No ‘Rhyme or Reason to What’s Happening’ on Screen
James Gunn agreed during a recent interview on the “Inside of You” podcast that there are “too many” superhero movies and television shows. Gunn is the new co-boss of DC Studios alongside Peter Safran, and he assured fans the company will not “overextend” itself with content as it begins to launch a new DC Universe that includes Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” and more.
“We’re going to be very careful with the product that we put out and making sure everything is as good as it can possibly be,” Gunn said.
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While the sheer volume of superhero content is a problem, Gunn stressed that lazy storytelling is a much bigger issue facing the genre at the moment.
“People have gotten really lazy with their superhero stories,” Gunn said. “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?'”
Gunn continued, “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…I don’t care about the characters. And they’ve gotten too generic.”
A solution to the problem is “having very different genres” within the larger superhero movie genre as opposed to “this sort of middle-of-the-road type of genre and tone that so many superhero movies have.”
“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.”
Gunn and Safran’s new DC Universe will span film, television and video games. In addition to “Superman: Legacy,” which Gunn is writing and directing, the new DC Universe film slate will also include “Supergirl: World of Tomorrow” and “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” the latter of which will be directed by “The Flash” helmer Andy Muschietti.
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