James Gunn says ‘Superman’ will have ‘quite different’ tone from ‘Gotg’

New DC Studios Boss James Gunn wants “Marvel to keep making good movies."

The director, who ended his term with Marvel with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, said his debut with DC will be quite different. 

Speaking of his upcoming Superman film, he said: "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.”

Gunn insisted that he doesn’t see Marvel and DC as being in competition with one another, even if he has jumped from the former to 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.”

Superman: Legacy will be the first motion picture of the Gunn-Safran period. Warner Bros. expects the project to be completed by July 2025.

“It focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way. He is kindness in a world that thinks that kindness is old-fashioned,” Safran told reporters in January.