James Gunn is giving his version of a eulogy for Marvel. The Co-Chairman and CEO of DC Studios, who also helmed the MCU’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy, told Rolling Stone that it was in part the “mandates” for more content on Disney+ that “killed” the MCU IP. Gunn pointed to how he is looking to lead WBD’s DC Studios in an entirely different way.
“That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it killed them,” Gunn said of the Disney studio demand for more Marvel projects, which led to a so-called MCU fatigue at the box office prior to “Thunderbolts.” “We don’t have the mandate [at DC] to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we’re going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality. We’re obviously going to do some good things and some not-so-good things, but hopefully on average everything will be as high-quality as possible. Nothing goes before there’s a screenplay that I personally am happy with.”
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Indeed, Gunn would never more forward into filming without a completed screenplay, which is why “The Batman 2” has been delayed for so long. The sequel starring Robert Pattinson was announced in 2022.
“Batman’s my biggest issue in all of DC right now, personally,” Gunn said. “And it’s not — I’m not writing Batman, but I am working with the writer of Batman and trying to get it right, because he’s incredibly important to DC, as is Wonder Woman. So outside of the stuff that I’m doing in the projects that are actively going, our two priorities are finishing our Wonder Woman and our Batman scripts.”
He continued, “Every single Batman story has been told. It seems like half the comics that have come out of DC over the past 30 years have Batman in them. He’s the most famous superhero in the world and the most popular superhero in the world. And people love him because he’s interesting, but also having so much of him out there can also make him boring. So how do you create that property that’s fun to watch?”
Gunn cited how rushing into production has created a major problem in Hollywood as a whole.
“I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies,” Gunn said. “It’s not because of home screens getting so good. The number-one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay.”
