In a new interview, Superman filmmaker and DC Studios boss James Gunn says an unspecified movie was “not going to be good” so he and his team “killed it.” Let the speculation commence. Writer-director James Gunn, whose Superman is currently swooping around multiplexes, has spoken about axing an unspecified movie in the DC Universe. As ... James Gunn says of unspecified DC Universe movie: “we killed it”
In a new interview, Superman filmmaker and DC Studios boss James Gunn says an unspecified movie was “not going to be good” so he and his team “killed it.”
Let the speculation commence. Writer-director James Gunn, whose Superman is currently swooping around multiplexes, has spoken about axing an unspecified movie in the DC Universe.
As well as a filmmaker, Gunn is also the co-head of DC Studios, and so he’s overseeing an entire slate of comic book movies. This summer’s Superman kicks off the DC Universe in its new form, but next year sees the release of Supergirl and the horror-laced Clayface. Looking further ahead, there’s Matt Reeves' The Batman Part 2 and The Brave And The Bold, to name but two.
Speaking to NPR, however, Gunn discusses a screenplay that went through several drafts before he and his team decided that it wasn’t good enough to go before cameras. Rather than go ahead and make a disappointing film, the project was cancelled.
Here’s what Gunn said:
I just stopped – you know, we had a screenplay that – you know, a movie that was greenlit. We went about. We got second draft and third draft, and it just wasn’t changing. It wasn’t getting better. It was staying in the same place. And I said, we can’t make this film. We can’t. It’s not good. We know it’s not good. Just because we have a good director attached and a good screenwriter, it doesn’t mean the script is working. It’s – everyone is going to be upset at the end of this. It’s going to come out, the movie’s not going to be good. Director’s going to look bad, screenwriter’s going to look bad and we’re going to look bad. So I don’t want to have this. We’re not going to make the movie. And so we killed it.
Elsewhere, Gunn pointed out that most other studios have a tendency to rush off and make a movie without a finished script – something he’s vowed not to do at DC Studios. That’s to be commended, certainly, though it’s likely to leave lots of people wondering what project it was that DC Studios “killed.”
One obvious victim, as highlighted by World Of Reel, is Sgt Rock – the comic book adaptation once headed up by director Luca Guadagnino. It looked as though the war adventure was going into production this summer, with Colin Farrell attached as star, but then it all suddenly stopped.
Gunn previously said in June that it “wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be creatively,” which might lend further weight to the suspicion that it was Sgt Rock that was nixed before it began filming. Without official confirmation, though, we can’t know for sure – it could also be one of the other projects on DC Studios’ slate, including The Authority or James Mangold’s Swamp Thing, which are both in development.
“One of the problems is that when they’re writing these screenplays that aren’t finished, you’re getting the first act,” Gunn said. “And you’re often in a first act that’s great, but you can’t write a first act that doesn’t relate to the last act… And I’ve seen it happen again and again, and it irritates the hell out of me. And as much as I go out there and keep, you know, talking about it, they still keep doing it, and it’s crazy. But I’ll never do it. I will never do it.”
Superman is in cinemas now.
