James Gunn’s First Call After Landing the DC STudios Job Was Marvel’s Kevin Feige

Before James Gunn put on the lead the charge at DC Studios, he was already a superhero mainstay thanks to his wild and beloved Guardians of the Galaxy films over at Marvel Studios.

So, when he officially took the reins as co-CEO of DC Studios, his first instinct wasn’t to draft a press release or start plotting multiverse timelines, it was to call his old boss. Gunn told Entertainment Weekly:

“As soon as I got that job, I made a couple of calls, and the first one was to Kevin Feige telling him that I’m taking the [job as] head of DC,”

I think that says a lot about the respect Gunn still holds for his Marvel roots. He doesn’t elaborate on what they talked about, but you can imagine that conversation was probably more about mutual respect.

These two helped shape modern superhero cinema, and despite being on opposite sides of the cape now, there's clearly no bad blood. If anything, it’s refreshing to see this kind of professional courtesy in a space that fans often frame as Marvel vs. DC.

Gunn went on to share that the second call he made was to Peacemaker star John Cena:

“The second [call] was to John Cena, and I said, ‘I’m getting this gig, and I still want to do Peacemaker, but it’s going to have to wait. We’re going to have to get Superman working first.’”

Gunn has been juggling a lot of projects, but he apparently thrives in that chaos.

The new DCU is slowly taking shape under his leadership. Creature Commandos was he first official title in this fresh canon, with Superman on deck as the big, blockbuster reset. And then we’ve got Peacemaker Season 2 coming.