This interview was exclusively provided to Rappler by Warner Bros. Pictures.
MANILA, Philippines — Superman, DC Studios’ first feature film to hit the big screen, is set to soar into theaters worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures.
In his signature style, James Gunn takes on the original superhero in the newly imagined DC Universe with a singular blend of epic action, humor, and heart, delivering a Superman who’s driven by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind.
DC Studios heads Peter Safran and James Gunn are producing the film, which Gunn directs from his own screenplay, based on characters from DC Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
The film stars David Corenswet in the dual role of Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Also starring are Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, María Gabriela de Faría, Wendell Pierce, Alan Tudyk, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Neva Howell.
You are on the precipice of releasing DC Studios’ first feature. And on top of that, it’s yours. And on top of that, it’s Superman. So, how are you feeling these days?
James Gunn: Cautiously optimistic. I feel good. I mean, really most of my time is just spent finishing the movie, we’re just finishing like ten VFX shots that aren’t done yet, and then finishing the color and the sound, and that’ll all be 100% done by the middle of next week. We’re at the finish line.
Tell me what Superman as a character means to you, and why you needed to make this film and to tell this story about him.
JG: Well, there’s a lot of things I love about the character of Superman, including that he’s the first ever superhero in the world. He created the reality of superheroes today. But I love his basic human goodness and kindness. And I thought making a movie out of somebody who was so good — usually the characters I write about are troubled souls who have a difficult time finding their path, although at the end of the day, they’re good. Superman’s the opposite. He’s just this really good, wonderful guy, with of course flaws, like anyone has, but at the core of it, he’s kind in a world that doesn’t always prop up kindness.
Your fellow DC Studios head, longtime colleague and friend, Peter Safran, has said that making a Superman movie was a lifelong dream of his. So, how does it feel to have helped make that kind of dream come true for someone who’s so important to you professionally and personally?
JG: The whole process of making Superman and beginning DC Studios with Peter, that part of it is just one of the best parts. I mean, he’s one of my best friends, and I’m able to hang out with him, and we have a good time. Anybody who sees us walking around the Warner Bros. lots knows that we’re actually friends.
And to be able to create something with somebody… we work so well together, because we never step on each other’s toes. It’s not like we don’t call each other out if there’s something that we feel uncomfortable with, and we’re always finessing the way we work together and the way DC Studios works with other people, but it’s just really been a pleasure.
You’ve taken inspiration from some of the canon’s greatest comics for this film, and arguably one of the greatest superhero films of all time. So where did the inspiration transition into a true James Gunn film for you?
JG: It’s a combination of a lot of things. First of all, Grant Morrison and I have known each other for a long time, so it’s not a mistake that All-Star Superman is something that speaks to me very directly. I think because we’re great admirers of each other’s work, it makes sense.
And tonally for me, that was a large part of the in to Superman. It was also a way to make this movie different from other superhero movies, and definitely other Superman movies, because of the science fiction elements, all the sort of crazy things that are in the comic books, whether it’s a flying dog or the robot assistants or the kaijus that you don’t normally see in a Superman movie, are in this film. And being able to still keep the character very grounded in that world, with real human characteristics and imperfections, I think was when I found my way into the story.
You’re famous for the music cues in your films, but you approach this one a little differently. You’re paying respect to, again, arguably one of the greatest scores of all time. So how did that change the process for you and your composers?
JG: It’s just a crutch I don’t have to lean on in the movie, so it made it harder. We have two enormously talented composers — I needed two because there’s so much big music — John Murphy and Dave Fleming, who have created this wonderful score that is in part, at times, based on John Williams’ score, but also has lots of new and unique stuff as well. And yeah, it’s a big part of the movie, and getting the tone of the music right was one of the more difficult challenges in the making of the film.
There’s a handful of filmmakers in history who have had to look for, and find, their Superman. So how did you find yours in David Corenswet?
JG: I knew that I wouldn’t make this movie if I couldn’t find Superman. I needed to have somebody that was really worthy of the role. And this Superman is particularly difficult. They’re all a little different, because he needs to look like Superman, but he also needed to have a depth of emotion and vulnerability and a sense of humor, and that isn’t always the case. So it was a really long process finding him, and we uncovered every stone.
But the truth is, I got pretty lucky with David, because he came in pretty early, and he became the one to beat from very early on. And he was somebody who came on my radar. He was auditioning already anyway, but I asked for his audition, because my friend George said, “Hey, have you seen Ti West’s movie Pearl? There’s this actor in it.” And I saw it, I loved the movie, and I’m friends with Ti, and I called Ti, and I’m like, “What did you think of this guy?” And he sang his praises. And so that was the beginning, but he still had to jump over a lot of hurdles before he got to the end point.
You’ve also got Lois Lane and Lex Luthor in the film, who are nearly as iconic as Superman. Why were Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult the perfect fit to round out that trio?
JG: I was a big fan of Rachel’s show [The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel], and she had auditioned, and I knew she was going to be one of the people that screen tested. And Amy Sherman-Palladino, who I’m friends with, I asked Amy about her, and Amy wrote me a long, long email singing Rachel’s praises to the highest heavens. And it was truly the best recommendation letter I’ve ever received from anyone.
And she was absolutely right, because Rachel is a dynamo. She’s fantastic. She’s specific. She’s funny. And she was really, really great. It was a harder role to cast in some ways, not because it was difficult to find her, but because we found a few really good Loises that we liked a lot, and it was a matter of picking the one we liked the most. And at the end of the day, I thought that was Rachel.
Nick is somebody whom I’ve always really liked. People know he auditioned for Superman. And I just kept thinking, even before he was auditioning, I said, “God, Nick would really make a great Lex. He’d be such a good Lex.” And he said that, when he was reading the script, he was like, “God, I think I’d be a great Lex.” And his agent was like, “Don’t say that.” So he didn’t get the role of Superman, but I called him up shortly thereafter and said, “Hey, I think this may be awkward. I know you’ve auditioned for Superman, you’ve auditioned for Batman. Well, we want you to be this other character.” But listen, I love the character of Lex. He’s in some ways the one I relate to the most, so I like him.
You have a brilliant team that backs you up on every film, so talk to me a little bit about what Beth Mickle and Judianna Makovsky brought to your vision on this one, because production design, costume design, are very important.
JG: Beth and Judianna have been with me on a number of films, so they’re always a big part of the creativity of creating this look. And we worked together from very early on to say, “What’s the palette of this film? What are the colors?” A lot of which were based on All-Star Superman. What is the feel of it? We have to get the right science fiction feel that is, in some ways, old school and Silver Age, but at the same time, it’s also new and not something we’ve really seen in a movie before. So, it was a challenge with all of that to keep a very specific look. And obviously having Beth and Judianna in conversation, both with each other, but also with Steph [Ceretti], our VFX supervisor, and Henry [Braham], the DP, to make sure we’re all on the same page.
I work differently than a lot of directors, because there are very open lines of communication between the department heads, and the lines delineating who does what can be a little bit more unclear at times. One thing I noticed in seeing a lot of big budget films is they’re so separate. Great production design, but costumes look like they’re made by somebody else, makeup looks like it’s by somebody else. And keeping that thing organic and everyone on the same page is important.
In what I would call a very James Gunn move, you’ve brought in additional superheroes to the film, which not everyone does. So why was it important to you to pepper the film with the Justice Gang and Metamorpho?
JG: I think they served the story, they’re a part of the story. I think that Superman has his work friends and his non-work friends. And in a lot of ways, the non-work friends are actually the people at the Daily Planet, and his work friends are these yahoos that are out superheroing for a corporate enterprise. But I think it’s important that, in this world that Superman lives in, this is a world populated by superheroes. Every time somebody starts off a sort of superhero universe, it’s like one superhero, and it’s like the first time anybody’s ever seen a superhero, and this is all being created now.
And we’ve told that story a million times. This isn’t that. When people read comic books today, even me, when I started reading comic books when I was three, four years old, there were already worlds populated by superheroes. That’s what you get into when you read comics. And this is a world in which superheroes aren’t exactly commonplace, but they exist and have existed for 300 years. So, this is an alternate history from our planet. This is one where superheroes are real.
Speaking of the Justice Gang, Nathan Fillion, who you have as Green Lantern, said that,
rather than putting these characters in our world, you invite the audience into theirs, into the comic
book world that you’ve created, and you let us live in it for a while. Was that a conscious choice?
JG: I think that people talk about, where does the inspiration for the DCU come from? And people bring up the MCU all the time, of course. But basically the MCU mimics our world and then has superheroes in it. But for me, it’s more like Game of Thrones in a way, where it’s this universe that we’re invited into, to come to see this world in which sorcery exists, magic exists, science exists so incredible that it seems like sorcery. Monsters exist. You don’t see them every day walking down the street, but occasionally you might see one. It’s about the fantasy element of that, and the really, truly world-building aspect of the DCU.
We have to, of course, talk a little bit about Ozu. How is he feeling about being the inspiration for one of your most-anticipated characters?
JG: I would say he doesn’t care about it, but I think he actually probably hates it. Ozu’s not very friendly. He is when you come into our house and you get to know him, but he’s not good with people coming up to him. My old dog, Wesley Von Spears, people would recognize him off of Instagram, and people would come out, and he loved it. He loved being a notable figure in the world of dogs. Ozu, he’s as bad as Krypto. He doesn’t want to be pet any more than Krypto wants Terrific to pet him.
I have to say I am a fan of Emily Monster myself.
JG: Oh, well, she’s a sweetheart. She loves everybody. Yeah. She’s very sweet.
You started production on Superman halfway around the world in Svalbard, Norway. Why was it important to you to capture the exteriors for the Fortress of Solitude in such a real environment? You can make anything now on a set, but you chose not to.
JG: You see a lot of big movies with a lot of fake environments lately, and they look fake. I wanted it to be real. It’s not like it’s more expensive, really, because at the end of the day, you have to pay for all those visual effects shots. You’d have to CGI the breath and everything. I just didn’t want to do it. And Svalbard is such an incredible location, with such a variety of types of landscapes within its snowy landscapes, that it seemed like the perfect place to put the Fortress of Solitude.
And it was actually a great way to shoot, because it was the very beginning of the shoot, we got to go away with just the main crew and a lot of our main actors, and it was really a bonding experience. We all went through that together at the very beginning. We had a lot of days set up to shoot in case the weather was bad, but the weather was perfect the whole time, so we got done in a few days, and then those guys just went off and went exploring. And I actually came back home, and went to work.
It looks perfect, despite being about 10 degrees.
JG: Oh, yeah, it was really cold. But cold in a lot of ways on a movie set is easier than heat, because you can’t do anything to get away from heat. But cold, we all bring tons of layers, and had the battery and the warming things, so it wasn’t too bad.
Tell me a little bit about filming in Cleveland, the birthplace of Superman, what that meant to you, not just as a filmmaker, but as a fan.
JG: That was awesome. I mean, we were doing the scouting there, and we’re walking down the street, and it’s about to turn night. And somebody pointed out the Terminal Tower building and he said, “That’s where Jerry or Joe said they first imagined Superman jumping over a building in a single bound. It was that building.” And right after that, it became night, and it went dark, and the lights lit up on the building. And they always light it in different colors, red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July, and green and red for Christmas, and so on. And it was lit with the colors of Superman with the yellow, blue, and red. And it was awesome.
Perhaps it was beckoning to you.
JG: Yeah. I mean, they did it because they knew we were there. But still, it was amazing. And that was just a sign of how much the city welcomed us. I mean, we got to use the city as if it was our giant back lot. They gave us total freedom, and they were excellent partners, and we loved being there, and the people of Cleveland are some of the nicest in the world.
What do you hope audiences are going to take away after they finally get to experience James Gunn’s Superman in theaters this summer?
JG: Well, I always hope for the same thing, which is I want somebody to walk in the theater with friends or family or whomever, and love people going out a little more than they loved them going in. If you can bring that out of people’s hearts, that’s the best thing that you can possibly do, for me as a filmmaker.
That’s the thing I care about the most. I know what that feeling feels like when I went to go to see a great movie with my wife, or back in the day with my parents, and just walked out feeling alive. And I think that that’s doubly true of this film. And I also think that it’s true that it really is about kindness in a world where kindness is not always thought of, unfortunately, as a gift, as a talent.
Meanness is propped up today often, on social networking, in schools, in people’s lives, at work and politics. And I believe in Superman, and I believe in his humanity, and I believe in being kind to everyone. And I think that this movie hopefully will help to make some people think about that a little bit more. – Rappler.com
Superman opens in Philippine cinemas on July 9.