Saving the world might look like a job for Superman, but getting the film successfully off the ground was a job for James Gunn. Such a duty might’ve made other mere mortals buckle under the strain of working on a franchise that had gone through such a tough time, but this wasn’t the case for the former Guardians of the Galaxy director. The man behind DC’s latest and co-head of DC Studios has recently confessed that he never felt the pressure of bringing his take of Clark Kent and his cape-wearing alter ego to life, but there were concerns for the other filmmakers that would be picking up where he left off.
While appearing on The Happy Sad Confused podcast, Gunn revealed how he handled bringing the Man of Steel to life and acknowledged that the future of the DCU was a legitimate concern. “I have a strange way of approaching work. When I’m working, when I’m filming or writing, I really don’t feel pressure- I’m having fun, that’s my relief valve. That’s a relieving time for me. But then outside of that, yeah, I felt a lot of pressure. I mean, there was a lot riding on this.”
Thankfully, all parties involved were committed to the same goal of getting Superman back to a beloved level, believing that a man could fly again. “When I feel pressure, the first pressure is from all the people that worked on this movie- the department heads and the actors that believe in it so much and Peter Safran, they all believed in this project so much. From the beginning, everyone was just wholeheartedly, 100% in, and if it comes out and it’s crap, that just sucks.”
Now with the success of the David Corenswet comic book film, Gunn’s biggest relief is that the next DC projects coming down the pipeline will be impacted in the right ways now that Superman has returned to a hero status. “Also, we have Craig Gillespie working on Supergirl, Chris, Damon and Tom working on Lanterns, and James with Clayface so there’s all these other people, working on these other projects that could have been bolstered or hampered by this movie, and thank God, they’ve all been bolstered by it.”
For info on every DCU project coming our way, which includes the likes of Peacemaker season 2 and Supergirl, head here.
