Three Superhero Moments James Gunn Never Wants to See Again in the Movies

James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios and director of the upcoming Superman movie, recently talked about the three superhero moments that he never wants to see again, telling The Times:

“There are three things I don’t ever need to see again in a superhero movie. I don’t need to see pearls in a back alley when Batman’s parents are killed. I don’t need to see the radioactive spider biting Spider-Man. And I don’t need to see baby Kal coming from Krypton in a little baby rocket.”

It’s not that Gunn is dismissing those origin stories, he’s just acknowledging how oversaturated they’ve become. He pointed out how other films don’t feel the need to spell everything out.

“We have watched a million movies with characters who don’t have their upbringing explained, like when we see Good Night, and Good Luck we don’t need to know the early life of Edward R. Murrow to explain how he became a journalist. Who cares?”

That line of thinking directly informs his approach to Superman. Rather than rehash Clark Kent’s journey from Smallville farm boy to Krypton’s last son, Gunn’s film introduces a Superman already in action.

This version of the character is in year three of his superhero career, and the world around him has been dealing with metahumans for centuries. Instead of starting at square one, Gunn is launching the movie with a Star Wars-style opening crawl to get audiences up to speed.

Gunn has also confirmed that The Brave and the Bold, DC’s upcoming Batman movie, will feature a seasoned Caped Crusader, not another early-years vigilante weighed down by flashbacks of alleyway trauma. When previously talking about Superman, he said:

“We just start in the middle of the action. Superman already exists. Lois and Clark already know each other. Lex [Luthor] hates Superman’s guts from the beginning, although they don’t know each other personally. So we start right in the middle of the action. It takes place over a short amount of time.”

I’m on board with this direction for movies. We don’t need to keep seeing the same old origin story, and I’m glad that DC Studios will be moving away from that and trying something different.