Deadline: James Gunn Talks ‘Superman: Legacy’ Tone, “Superhero Fatigue” & His Hopes For Marvel’s Future

Story from Deadline:

Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker and DC boss James Gunn has opened up in a new Rolling Stone interview about his plans for Superman: Legacy, superhero fatigue and more.

One of the most noteworthy points made by Gunn in the chat spotlighting his upcoming Marvel franchise closer Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is that his forthcoming Superman film, opening the first chapter in his new DC, will be substantially different in tone from the comic book films he’s most recently made.

“I learned so much from making these [Guardians] movies,” said Gunn. “But it’s not like Superman is going to have exactly the same vibe as a Guardians movie. It’s actually quite different.”

Now that Gunn is concentrating on his efforts as both a filmmaker and executive at DC, one might wonder what his thoughts are about the direction in which Marvel is heading, and what his hopes might be as far as the studio’s future. “I really want Marvel to keep making good movies,” offered the filmmaker, before going on to opine that “the Blip” (or mass extinction event brought on by Thanos in Avengers: Endgame) has made doing so “really hard.

“There’s this worldwide, universe-wide event that happened. And in truth, everybody would be stark raving mad at this point,” said Gunn. “So it’s hard to write stories in the wake of that. Which is why the Guardians movies have been easier, because they’re set outside of that a little bit.”

Gunn went on to clarify that he doesn’t see Marvel and DC as being in competition with one another, even if he is now personally running the latter with Peter Safran. “To be frank, I think the better Marvel movies do, it’s better for DC, and the better DC movies do, it’s better for Marvel,” he explained. “When people see bad movies, they don’t want to spend more money on seeing more movies. So you want good movies to happen.”

Part of what achieving this comes down to, Gunn seemed to suggest, is recognizing that “there is such a thing” as superhero fatigue, even if it actually “doesn’t have anything to do with superheroes.

“It has to do with the kind of stories that get to be told, and if you lose your eye on the ball, which is character,” continued Gunn. “We love Superman. We love Batman. We love Iron Man. Because they’re these incredible characters that we have in our hearts. And if it becomes just a bunch of nonsense onscreen, it gets really boring. But I get fatigued by most spectacle films, by the grind of not having an emotionally grounded story.”

Gunn’s third and final Guardians film, following the half-human, half-alien Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and his gang of intergalactic criminals, is set for release May 5. And Gunn recently shared on Twitter that while the film is nearly two and a half hours in length, “not a second is wasted. There’s no fat. It was necessary to experience the full arc for every major Guardians character, not only for this film, but for the trilogy (or, I should say, trilogy plus).”

The filmmaker also recently took to the social media platform to shoot down rumors of Logan Lerman’s casting as Superman, in his Chapter One: Gods and Monsters title slated for release on July 11, 2025. “Haven’t had a single talk with a single actor about the role,” he wrote. “Just making private lists, prepping material for auditions.”