James Gunn

We had dinner at Chris Pratt's house, and then we watched an Alexander Payne movie.

I know, me too.

And I know I've met Will a couple times, but I can't, I remember one time it was at a screening somewhere, but it was a long time ago.

Yeah, James.

I remember you standing there.

But if you notice, instead of a pocket watch, there's sausage links there.

I didn't even see that.

That's hilarious.

It's a very elegant looking painting.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

And then just kind of, you know, just a smaller part of the painting, there's sausage.

Wait, who did that?

I can't remember the artist's name.

Yeah, that's great.

The name's not on there, so I bought it a long time ago.

I'm excited to meet you, too.

I'm a big fan.

I was still in grad school and... Studying what?

Studying writing at Columbia.

And I got a job at Troma to write a screenplay for a movie called Tromeo and Juliet for $150.

And I'm not saying that as an exaggeration.

I mean literally $150.

Troma was most known for the Toxic Avenger films.

They were...

like made a lot of money and then they made a, you know, they started out with sort of,

You know, TNA movies like Squeeze Play, stuff that, you know, I watched on Cinemax as a kid.

But that made money in theaters.

And then they made a bunch of movies that made a bunch of movie on videocassette.

So they actually made a lot of money in the 70s and 80s, and this was the 90s.

So they weren't making as much.

But they were never paying anyone for anything.

They made money for doing everything for free.

I mean, it was traumatic to work for them, you guys.

Well, Lloyd—

Lloyd Kaufman, the head of Troma, says that the word Troma means excellence in celluloid in Latin.

So I don't know how much... Well, that's what he says.

I don't think there's a Latin word for celluloid.

Yeah, like a more raw, rougher, I mean, the difference is that Corman just was 100% product, but Lloyd is kind of an artist.

It's just that his artistry is, not kind of, he's an artist, but his artistry is very blood splattery and sexual and very trashy, but there is a sort of feeling to trauma films that the AIP, Roger Corman's company's films didn't have.

Sort of.

I mean, I went in to meet with him, and then by the end of that meeting, I think he asked me to write the screenplay.

I was doing, like, these sort of monologues.

It was these monologue things downtown New York, and so he kind of knew who I was from that.

Right, okay.

Yeah, the thing is, is that Troma, and I just was able to learn about every single facet of filmmaking.

So yeah, I wrote the screenplay, but I ended up, my credits, I think, are executive producer, but then also associate director.

because I basically ended up directing portions of the film.

That's a sitcom title.

It is.

One of my first jobs was to choreograph a sex scene between two women.

So that was sort of my first.

Yeah, it was horrible.

It's a different job title nowadays.

Well, I was on set every single day.

I directed the actors.

Nobody talked to the actors but me.

Gotcha.

Oh, wow.

It was like I just learned, and I would come home every day from work with the girl I was living in at the time, and I think I found my home.

It was like I was alive.

Yeah, I think it just, I was good at it.

I really was good at it.

And I mean, it wasn't like I had no experience making films.

I started making films when I was very young, just out of fun.

But I was just one of these artistic kids that did everything.

I made films.

I took photographs.

I played in rock bands.

I did comic strips.

But I understood filmmaking pretty well.

Yeah, I think about 11, I started making movies and it was like, I had seen Friday the 13th and I'm like, oh, we can all do this.

And, and I was tearing apart my brother, Sean, who's an actor now, you know, with fake blood and,

what eight ten and and do you think it was because of that passion that you're where you're at now um or was it just uh was it was it was there a moment of great luck right place right time i'm sure a combination of of i think it is a combination of a number of things it's a combination of of luck it luck is definitely plays a hand in it i think a part of it is i agree that i still i somehow am able to shut out the world about what the world thinks and just act from a creative place wow

So I don't have to do what I'm doing to like, you know, please, like that can come in after.

Yet at the same time, I have a right brain mentality.

So I'm sort of able to think how things fit into a pattern.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, the puzzle making part of it is a part of it for me.

So I think, yeah, I think I have the right mix of being passion, creativity, but also detachment.

Yeah, although I have a partner, Peter Safran, who takes care of everything that I don't want to have to take care of.

So he goes to all the corporate meetings.

That's dry cleaning.

You built in a bad guy.

I hate to say it.

I'm still the bad guy.

But he takes care of all the sort of practical stuff in the studio.

He knows all about the money and all.

I don't know what's going on with that.

I really am here mostly to try to create creative stories that are good.

And one of our main commitments is to the writing of the story.

So that means that the writers are lifted up in a place where they've been, I think, just sort of their place is diminished.

in Hollywood, especially in filmmaking, not in television.

And to be able to make sure we never go into production on a script that I don't think is finished and great.

It is, but I'll change the date.

I don't, you know, I mean, if that has to happen.

Gotcha.

I mean, I just generally, you know, we've been just running off of, you know, screenplays.

So Superman got finished.

People liked it.

We made Superman.

Supergirl was written by this wonderful writer, Anand Agwara, and then that was really good, and so we greenlit that.

Oh, wow.

Playface came into us by Mac Flanagan.

He wrote a great script, and so we greenlit that.

Batman 2 has had, you know, Matt Reeves, you know, has moved the date a couple times of when it's coming in.

But it's, you know, we moved the date because Matt wasn't ready with the script and we need to give him time to finish the script in the way he wants.

I've been around so many big movies by this time, and I just see that the problems are always that you have these screenplays that are, you know, they say, okay, well, we have the first act.

That's really good.

Let's set our production date for six months from now.

And then they go into production, and they don't have the last act, and they're writing it during production.

Yeah.

And that's just not how screenplays work.

Everything in the first act, what they're doing is naturally related to what happens in the last act.

Sure.

Right.

Well, the culture at DC Studios is new.

It's me and Peter.

So we haven't even been here for three years.

So that's new.

And the culture at Marvel, there were so many things I loved about being at Marvel.

I mean, first of all, Kevin and Lou, the guys who are in charge, are just really just great guys.

Kevin Feige and Lou D'Esposito.

Yeah.

They're great guys.

I really love them.

And they really care about the movies, you know, but sometimes they get over, you know, I mean, like they're trying to get things all back on path.

They got overwhelmed with, you know, Disney coming out with streaming and then saying we needed a million things this year.

Right.

And it just became too much to quality control.

It was down to him and corn sweat.

Well, I didn't.

I mean, again, it was a thing of they came to me with Superman, you know, many years ago.

And I was like, I don't know.

I just had a hard time imagining what it was going to be.

And Peter Safran, who's been my partner, he started out as my manager in 1998 and has since become my producing partner.

You know, it's his dream, it was his dream to make a Superman movie, always.

And so he was always bringing it up, always just bullying me about it.

And eventually, you know, I just kind of kept playing it in my head.

It was like a math problem I'm trying to solve.

Like, how could Superman work?

and then I finally started to see it, and it was the culmination of a couple of things.

Number one, that I reread an old comic book I really like a lot called All-Star Superman.

And it had a sort of Silver Age yet grounded classically sort of science, old school science fiction, but again, really grounded characters and deep moral issues around the character of Superman.

And I saw how that wouldn't be the story that I could tell, but I could just rip off the way that comic book was.

Grant Morrison and Frank Quiley and Jamie Grant did that book.

So I think that was part of it.

And then just kind of just playing around with ideas and coming into it.

And then I got this stupid dog, Ozu, who was destroying all my stuff.

And I thought, oh my God, what if this dog had superpowers?

My life would be destroyed.

My house would look like it.

No, my dog's name is Ozu, but he is what Krypto is 3D modeled based upon.

Krypto's the name of the dog.

Yeah, he's Superman's super dog from the comics.

He's never been in the movies.

That's not always where I'm at with something, but with this film, I was.

I said to the cast when we sat down for our meal before we started that this is a movie about goodness.

And it isn't about a world that's kind.

The world in Superman is as unkind as our world in many ways.

But Superman is kind.

And that's his real superpower.

And that's, you know, the fact that he doesn't balk from that, that there isn't an ironic flip on the fact that he's kind, that he's just straight up kind.

It's not a joke.

We're not making fun of him.

And that's, you know, he is a rebel and his, you know, his rebelliousness, you know, manifests itself in just kindness and goodness and

Man, that's great dad stuff to say.

That's really great.

That's beautiful.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It was very important.

And I think it's really, you know, I think that was why I struggled with the character because I've normally written these characters that are sort of the opposite of that in some ways.

Characters like, you know, Rocket from Rocket Raccoon from those movies and Star-Lord and Peacemaker who are these blustery, angry individuals who,

who, you know, at their heart, they're good, but it takes this work to get to who they are.

Right.

And that's what the stories are about.

And I think that's what my life was about up until that point, because I was like that.

But I think that this comes to me at a certain different point in my life where I am more okay with just being kind.

You know, it's so funny.

Oh, no.

No, it's the shorts.

It's the shorts.

Oh, you don't even understand.

Somebody, I am sure that somebody would kill somebody else over the fight over whether Superman should have trunks or not.

So I wasn't aware of this conversation until I came onto the movie and I started trying to design the Superman suit.

And the truth is Superman always had trunks in the comics.

Do they make sense?

I mean, sort of.

They existed because when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster first created the character, he was like a wrestling guy or a circus strong man, so he has these trunks on over his costume.

And, but then Zack Snyder came in and that was like the dark, more, you know, mean, cool version of Superman.

Right.

And he didn't have trunks.

He took away the trunks.

And so when Zack took away the trunks, there were tons of fans that were outraged.

Sure.

There are people that spend all the, you know, we think our world is divided in terms of Republicans and Democrats and that everybody's fighting about that stuff.

About trunks.

That's because you don't,

There are whole factions of people that don't even know, barely know who Donald Trump is.

And all they care about is whether Superman has trunks or not.

It's like a religion to some people.

I don't, I mean...

That may not be the healthiest thing for a person.

So, I mean, but it's an issue.

And so, yeah, people keep arguing about the trunks.

And then I came out and our Superman has trunks because, and I really couldn't decide, but David Coren Sweat was like, you know what?

This is a guy who can fly around.

David Coren Sweat plays Superman.

He can fly around.

He shoots beams out of his eyes.

He can do all these scary things.

He's an alien from outer space, but he really wants kids to like him.

So he's going to wear this sort of garish, colorful costume.

Kids love shorts.

They aren't that short.

They're trunks.

They're trunks.

Well, I think that you could design the pants so that they don't outline the ball sack.

It was like, I...

I had actually told my agents that I didn't want to focus on film anymore.

Actually, this relates to some of the stuff we were talking about in the beginning.

I said, you know, it's like no movies are taken seriously.

They aren't a part of the cultural conversation unless it's like a Hulk movie or a Marvel movie or something.

I'm making these lower-budget films.

Like, they just aren't resonating.

You know, I had just signed a deal to do another TV pilot, which I had always done, and I was like...

You know, it seems like the really creative space for writers these days and even directors is in television.

That's where you kind of do what you want.

Television has taken the place of the art film in a lot of ways.

So I said, I am going to just focus on television.

I had also just done a video game, which I had a lot of fun doing.

I'm going to focus on creating TV and video games.

And it was then that Marvel called

and said, we want you to come in and meet about this thing.

And I was like, oh, I have to drive down.

They were in Manhattan Beach at the time.

I was in Studio City.

I'm like, oh my God, I got to drive through this terrible traffic.

It's such a great LA response.

Yeah.

Instagram page with the cool traffic site.

This was before Zoom.

Exactly.

And so I'm like, you know, I'm like, I don't even want to go.

I had met with them before about stuff.

So it wasn't like I was getting the call.

And so I went in there and I sat down and they told me about Guardians of the Galaxy and

They showed me this pre, you know, art they had done.

And it looked to me like Bugs Bunny in the middle of the Avengers.

And I'm like, I don't know about this.

So it's like...

Um, I was like, I don't, I don't know.

And, uh, I, I was driving home in the traffic.

Yeah.

So maybe I should be grateful.

Now it's worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had to think and listen to music cause there was no Instagram where I couldn't Instagram myself doing it.

And, um, I, uh, and I was going, you know what, you know, okay.

So

You're thinking that this raccoon is a drawback, but what if this raccoon was real?

Like, how would this raccoon come to be?

So I imagine, like, what if this raccoon was real?

And I'm like, oh, my God, this raccoon would be the saddest creature in the universe.

He's created in a...

Petri dish, basically.

He doesn't, you know, has nothing like him in the universe.

He's completely alone.

And so it was that was sort of the soul of the movie.

And then I started thinking how much I loved Star Wars when I was a little kid and what Star Wars meant to me.

And I thought that I could create that

not by mimicking Star Wars, but making Star Wars for what would work with kids today.

So bringing some of the color back.

When I walked into the supermarket and saw C-3PO and Chewbacca on the cover of People magazine, I was like, oh my God, who are those guys?

That's so cool.

I knew that I could do that.

Yeah.

I think it was like, and with the music, it was really like, I'm creating this space opera with all these characters that people don't know, and it's totally wacky and weird.

So how do you ground this in the coolest way possible?

And I'm like, well, 70s AM pop would work perfectly over this.

Somebody dancing through, you know, an alien graveyard.

He can't even help.

Oh, yeah.

I text him all the time because I'm doing all sorts of press junket stuff and things like that.

And I love doing press junkets with the guys I'm doing it with, with the—

with the Superman cast and with John Cena from Peacemaker and all that.

Chris and I used to have such a great time on those things.

Would you guys pair yourselves together?

All the time.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it was like, it just became these giggle fests

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Well, I wrote – I created Peacemaker two years ago.

So Peacemaker – or whatever, four years ago.

Peacemaker originated on HBO Max a few years ago.

It was the number one show on HBO Max ever.

And then I committed to a second season.

And so it's –

my favorite cast, and I love these guys.

And so I was supposed to do a second season.

Then I got the job as the head of DC Studios.

I was halfway through doing this animated show called Creature Commandos.

And so like in a space of, I had to get into Superman first.

So my second call after, right before the job was announced,

was to John Cena saying, I'm going to do Peacemaker, but I just have to hold a B because I got to get Superman right.

And so, yeah, in a year I wrote 650 pages of material.

And then the next year I produced and directed 650 pages of material.

And this year we're releasing 650 pages of material.

10 o'clock.

No, no, that's not true.

But I get up pretty, I don't get up that early.

So you stay up late?

I stay up late, but my times fluctuate wildly.

So like when I'm writing, I try to have as little schedule as possible because it's just the writing's in my brain all the time.

So during that 650 pages, when I'm just writing out of pure panic in a lot of ways, but then when I get to the page, it's working, you know?

And then I step outside of the page and I'm terrified, step back into the page and it's working, step outside of the page and I'm terrified.

And so I just had to keep writing and writing and writing.

And that was going on constantly, you know, and I that was actually the busiest time was the writing of it, because, you know, when you're shooting, it's much more structured.

And then I have to go into post-production and all that stuff.

It was cool, I was happy.

It wasn't as pure of a joy as, say, when I got the first Guardians movie, because that was me doing something I knew how to do.

This was kind of creating a new job that hasn't existed, because there hasn't ever been a creative in the position of studio head.

Yeah, I guess, yeah.

But also you do need to manage a lot of stuff, so there's part of it.

And that's what, I would never do the job without Peter Safran.

Yeah, there used to be something called the Creative Committee at Marvel.

And it was, you know, comic book people and toy people and all these people that would chime in with their notes on scripts.

And I think that's fine that, you know, they give notes because, you know, one of the things that you hear all these people being afraid of notes all the time, but you don't usually you don't have to use them.

You just have to listen to them.

And people are usually happy if you just listen.

If you listen and then you say, I don't know, because of this, they're usually OK.

Yeah.

But they were a little bit.

acted as if they were the authority on everything.

And so Kevin and I, we'd be working on Guardians of the Galaxy, and we'd have that final screenplay, and then all of a sudden we'd get these lists of things that needed to be changed

And it always felt to me like I was watching that show, The Nick, at the time when they used to do operations and they'd have the audience members there.

And it felt like a couple of brain surgeons performing brain surgery and having a bunch of podiatrists around telling them how to do it.

And it was just like, you know, I mean, they told me to take the songs out.

You know, when they saw the first cut and Bradley was doing Rocket's voice as a character, they were like, why do we pay all this money without, you know, he doesn't sound like Bradley Cooper.

I'm like, yeah, he's playing a character.

He's an actor.

That's what the guy does.

That's why we hired him.

And it was just a list of, you know, things that they just had nothing to do with storytelling, nothing to do with what would capture people's imaginations and just whatever their peculiarities were.

I thought it gave me an opportunity.

First of all, I thought it was cool because DC was breaking off from Warner Brothers and becoming its own studio, which was awesome.

That had never been done.

You know, Marvel is still under Disney.

And then, secondly, I thought it was an opportunity to try something that had never been done before, which was to create a cohesive universe, but also a cohesive brand that was about quality.

And I only am going to be on this earth for so long, so might as well put everything into it.

It's an opportunity that just has never existed for anyone, ever.

So how could I say no to that?

My wife wishes I had.

But...

You know, how could I say no to that?

Oh, I knew that we could.

Yeah, yeah, because the only person we answer to is David Zaslav, and David Zaslav has... He tells us if he likes something or he doesn't like something, but he doesn't have any sort of say or interest in saying... It's not that he doesn't have any say.

If he wanted to, I guess he could, but he doesn't have any interest in saying the story A and story... He's the opposite of the guy Will was talking about.

Yeah.

We love David.

Yeah, so he's not, you know, he doesn't...

think that he knows how to do that, you know?

Right.

One of the most terrifying calls ever was, you know, I had done the screen test with David Cornswet and Rachel Brosnan, and, you know, and they were so freaking good together, and I loved them, and Peter loved them, and Chantal, our executive producer, loved them, and I sent the tape off to Dave, and I said, here's our two choices.

Yeah.

Here's what we want to do, and...

David called me up, and he goes, and he sounds really dour, and he goes, you know, I have to preface this by saying this isn't what I do.

This isn't what I know.

You know, I'm not a movie business guy.

I'm a movie creator.

I'm not a storyteller like you are.

This is just coming from a place of me as a person.

And then he stopped, and he goes, I fucking love it!

And it was...

That's so good.

Like you were an asshole.

I hated when we were going through all the guild dispute stuff and AI was the big part of it because we're just not quite there at that point yet with writing and acting.

And so there were all these important issues that we needed to talk about.

And it's like AI, the splashy thing, is making all the headlines.

All my friends online are getting upset about AI stuff.

And I'm like, guys, really, look at what's happening.

This isn't a real thing in this moment.

I have a stunty friend who's like, they're gonna use my body and they have the rights to my body.

I'm like, they don't want your body.

They want the body of the guy, the actor that you play.

But I think in the moment, it's a problem for the low-level jobs, which is where I feel the most compassion by, say, with VFX,

all the people that do all the rotoscoping and all these sort of more tedious jobs, that is going to be replaced by AI in the next couple of years, almost certainly.

And I don't think there's anything we can do about that.

I don't think there's any way that a studio is going to say, yeah, let's spend an extra $40 million on this movie.

Yeah, but I mean, it's so, it is a little bit of ways right now.

So it's, you've got to do a lot of stuff.

I mean, it's, you know, the things that you're watching are eight second clips of things.

And even then, if you put, you know, get into a cab, you're suddenly getting into the front seat of the cab, you know?

Right, right.

So it's, you've got to, it's, there is artistry and work behind AI.

I've played with it a lot.

It's fun to play with.

And yeah.

So I don't really know.

I'm not a fortune teller, but I am very aware of what the present problems are.

Wait a second.

I thought you were a fucking fortune teller.

But for me, kind of the bigger problem, especially in the VFX industry, is that all the people that do the jobs that are going to remain, a lot of the animators are actually almost like technical actors.

because they're creating the actions of these characters, the way they move.

And the training ground for those jobs is gone now.

So how do you learn how to be those people?

How does the next generation of people come about?

And I think that's pretty much going to be true in every industry.

So the double problem is where do all these people go that have these other jobs in a world that already doesn't have enough jobs?

And then how do the people train to get to the next level?

Doesn't that mean that we're instantly going to have more ill-trained people at the top?

I think maybe that's true.

I mean, I don't know, though.

I mean, it depends on how developed it gets, you know, because remember, AI is eating its own tail.

It's not feeding.

It can't create something new.

Where it will be in the next few years, I don't think that's true.

I think that what you get out of that is you get a Hallmark movie.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's an audience for Hallmark movies, but you can't make, you know, a billion dollars at the box office with a Hallmark movie.

And you can't really afford to make movies no matter what.

I don't think, I mean, I think that your basic point is absolutely correct.

True.

I mean, that you can make bigger feeling movies cheaper.

I mean, a movie like Superman is, you know, nearly half of its budget is in VFX.

Yeah, right.

That's a lot.

It's a big budget film.

It's not as big as, you know, Guardians 3 or, you know, these other things.

But a lot of that's the actors, you know.

I think the music industry got kind of screwed.

They're fucked.

Yeah, totally.

they got screwed because yeah the music industry had no awareness this the streaming change was coming and they just they got screwed out of everything so the writers songwriters got screwed out of everything you know you know so like one of the things i do in my spare time is i've written songs and right you know we i have songs that have like 40 or time how do

40 million hits of, you know, 40 million plays on Spotify.

I've never noticed a dollar coming in from that.

And I probably have made a few thousand dollars.

But that's a few thousand dollars.

Wow.

That's a huge song.

Yeah, that's a huge number.

And so it's like, you know, people make money today from touring, which is great that the

You know, the live music industry is thriving.

But in terms of musicians making money like how they used to from album sales and songs, you know, it's not there.

We've fallen on bad times.

I do think that a film or a television show or something that's a novel, they're all artistic expressions and they're all a form of communication.

They're all a form of one, you know...

of either person or group of people communicating to other people.

And I think that if people feel that communication aspect is not there, that's going to be a drawback for a lot of people because there is that feeling when you're seeing a movie or watching a TV show.

Maybe, but I think it's also, what are you talking about as AI films?

Are you meaning 100% generated by AI from start to finish?

It's going to affect animation, almost certainly.

You know, I mean, you know, it definitely will.

I'm not in a band now.

I don't play.

Oh, I thought you were.

I mean, I was in a band.

Oh, I didn't know if you still played, yeah.

No, I still play.

I still play some piano, but I still write music at various times.

You know, like Rhett Miller and I wrote songs together for the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special.

And I wrote a song with Tyler Bates for Guardians 2.

I wrote stuff for Scooby-Doo.

For me, I could never do, I'm not that.

Yes, you could.

I'm a punk rock kid.

What if you say, what if you say, yeah, I mean, from time to time, I'm running with.

Well, if Johnny Greenwood can do it, you can do it.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, no, I couldn't.

I couldn't do it.

All right.

We're already seven minutes over.

That Peacemaker is live on August 21st on HBO Max, and there is a podcast inspired by Smartless, solely, with me and Jennifer Holland, who plays Harcourt, who also happens to be my wife, and Steve Agee, who plays Economos, and then many guest stars from Daniel Brooks and John Cena and so forth.

Oh, nice.

And that takes place...

Twice a week up until the release that we go over every single episode of Peacemaker.

That's great.

Oh, that's fun.

That's cool.

I believe it's called Peacemaker, the official podcast with James Gunn.

It's a wonderful podcast.

I don't know.

A creative committee of sorts came up with it by AI.

Oh, I will.

Absolutely, Sean.

Yeah, she loved you and Scott.

And same to Scott, by the way.

I will, yeah.