How STAR WARS Helped James Gunn Solve a Key Problem in His SUPERMAN Movie

When James Gunn was deep in post-production on Superman, everything was falling into place… except for one nagging issue… audiences were loving what they saw, but they weren’t fully grasping the world they were stepping into.

“We found that people loved the movie but that they were confused about the world they were entering,” Gunn told io9.

That confusion pushed Gunn to revisit one of his biggest inspirations, Star Wars. Specifically, George Lucas’ famous opening crawl, which instantly dropped moviegoers into a galaxy far, far away with just a few lines of text.

Gunn realized that same approach could help anchor viewers in the DC Universe he was building. He explained:

“I didn’t have that in the movie originally, [And it was] definitely inspired by Star Wars. You think about Star Wars and it’s like, ‘Yeah, there’s all this crazy stuff happening, but you have that scroll in the beginning,’ and it didn’t really bother me as a kid.

“I like the scroll. So it’s just kind of setting the tone for what this universe is so that people feel a little bit more settled.”

So, the fix was to start Superman off with six quick sentences that lay out the basics… the universe, Kal-El’s origin, and the film’s premise. It worked great, and I loved it!

Gunn also made an interesting connection to his own past work, saying:

“It’s almost like in Guardians [of the Galaxy] allowing that music to come in because everything was so outlandish. But by feeling that ’70s AM pop, it gave people some grounding.

“So I’m always really cognizant of allowing the big, brash, weird, crazy stuff to happen, but also always giving people their feedback. And you do that through emotion. You do that through subtle storytelling. And you do it through music. That was the movie.”

So while Gunn’s Superman might be wild, strange, and vibrant in all the best ways, that short opening crawl makes sure we’re not lost when we first enter that world.