James Gunn is flying excessive proper now. Superman, which he wrote and directed, has gained two consecutive weeks on the field workplace, bringing in $235 million in its first 10 days.
It’s an auspicious begin for the inaugural movie for Warner Bros.’ DC Studios and its rebooted DC Universe, which can be co-run by Gunn.
However lower than a decade in the past, he was in a really totally different place. In 2018, after Gunn criticized then-President Donald Trump on then-Twitter, right-wing commentator Mike Cernovich dug up outdated tweets Gunn had posted between 2008 and 2012, making jokes about pedophilia, rape, and the Holocaust.
He publicly apologized, however the ensuing media brouhaha led Disney to chop ties with Gunn, regardless of the filmmaker producing two of the corporate’s largest current hits, together with Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2.
“My life was gone,” Gunn stated in a current episode of Armchair Knowledgeable, a podcast hosted by Dax Shepard and Monica Padman. “I believed my profession was over. I didn’t suppose I used to be gonna make one other dime on this business. I believed I used to be gonna have to carry onto no matter I had made, which was nowhere close to as a lot as I had hoped it could be, to final for the remainder of my life, and dwell a extremely frugal life.”
Because it turned out, Disney acquired a ton of criticism after firing Gunn. Actors from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, in addition to different entertainers, comedians, and journalists, slammed the choice. Bobcat Goldthwait, who supplied a voice for the 1997 Disney movie Hercules, requested Disney to take away his voice from an upcoming park attraction based mostly on the film in response to the incident. A web-based petition urging Disney to rehire Gunn obtained over 400,000 signatures.
“I had misplaced all the facility I had, I had misplaced the flexibility to solid anyone, I had misplaced every thing,” Gunn recalled.
He stated this era of his life helped him have a realization about himself.
“I noticed that every thing I had completed was actually to be wealthy and well-known so that individuals would love me. And I wished folks to like me,” he stated.
However listening to 8,000 folks chanting his identify at a Comedian-Con occasion in Brazil nonetheless left him feeling empty.
As an alternative, after he was let go by Disney weeks later, Gunn stated he “obtained a lot love”—from Jennifer Holland, his then-girlfriend and now-wife, in addition to the opposite solid members from the Guardians of the Galaxy motion pictures like Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, and Dave Bautista.
“I used to be overwhlemed with it, and I skilled being liked for the primary time,” Gunn stated. “I went to sleep that night time going, you realize, this began out because the worst day of my life, however I really suppose it’s the most effective day of my life. As a result of I realized that I don’t have to faucet dance until the bones are displaying via my toes to get folks to love me.”
In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav introduced Gunn could be one of many two new heads of DC Studios, serving to oversee the inventive path of the brand new DC Universe throughout motion pictures, TV, and animation.
It meant he might not work with Marvel Studios and Disney, which had rehired Gunn in 2019 to make Guardians of the Galaxy 3
But it surely did imply he would get to put in writing and direct his personal tackle Superman, about his early years in Metropolis. Superman is now in theaters.
