James Gunn is one of the most extravagant directors and screenwriters that the film industry currently has. Although he has made some productions in the past that paved the way for him in Hollywood where it has been shining the most is in the field of superheroes and adaptations of comics to the big screen. This has been shown Guardians of the Galaxy Suicide Squad and his new Peacemaker series. These latest movies and series have given him the opportunity to work at both Marvel and DC Films.
His talent for bringing little-known comic book characters to life and creating original, funny and endearing stories have earned him the love of the public and the approval of critics.
How did your career begin and how did you achieve success at both Marvel and DC? In this note we tell you the exciting story of how he managed to work for two of the most famous studios in the world.
James Gunn He did not rise to fame right away, but from a young age he was always passionate about cinema. Growing up in Missouri, USA, he was influenced by horror films like The night of the Living Dead Y Friday the 13th.
In 1995, at the age of 29, he worked for the first time as a screenwriter on a B movie called Tromeo and Juliet an acid and black humor parody on the original work of Shakespeare.
In 2002, he got his first job in Hollywood, on the writing staff of the Scooby-Doo’s first live-action.
It would not be until 2006 that Gunn would write and direct his first feature film, slither which today is considered a classic of horror and science fiction.
With a little more experience and not afraid to try new things, James Gunn returned to write and direct his next movie: Super.
Very much in his style, the story was a black humor satire about a man who becomes Scarlet Lightning (Crimson Bolt), a ‘superhero’ with no special abilities.
There he worked with rainn wilson (TheOffice), Elliot Page (The Umbrella Academy) and kevin bacon (Footloose), and placed himself back in the eye of Hollywood.
The year 2014 meant one of the biggest steps in James Gunn’s career. The premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy It was very well received worldwide.
It was a compilation of the elements that he had been using so far in his career, now put into a group of Marvel characters that no one knew at the time.
Humor and the audacity of not taking himself so seriously were key to his success, but the most important thing was that Gunn loved the characters and understood them.
even the same steven spielberg who had already seen Superman by Richard Donner, Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan and Hombre de Hierro praised the film over the previous ones while making a visit to the Cannes Film Festival.
“When I finished watching her, I left the cinema feeling that I had seen something new free of cynicism and without fear of taking risks when necessary”, he confessed.
In 2017, Gunn continued with Marvel and released Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, another success that satisfied the audience, especially for little Baby Groot.
James loved the characters so much that he even bothered to record yourself dancing like Baby Groot so that the special effects guys would understand the moves he was looking for.
Just one year later, on July 20, 2018, James Gunn would be surprised by a situation that no one saw coming at the time.
As a result of some old tweets published between 2008 and 2009 in which the director had joked about topics like pedophilia and rape Walt Disney Studios announced his dismissal.
In this way, Gunn was relieved without the right to extension of the performance of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
The news surprised the fans, who described the decision as unfair, since it was due to something that had happened a long time ago and had nothing to do with his person today.
The panorama caused the silence of James for a time on social networks. But as the saying goes “there is no harm that does not come for good”, a new door opened.
Three months later, in October, Warner Bros Studios made it official that James Gunn would join their ranks to direct suicide squad 2 movie based on DC comics.
Although it was going to be a sequel, the disastrous first part, directed by David Ayer, made Gunn would like to make a kind of reboot, but keeping some characters.
A year later, in 2019, Disney reconsidered its decision and rehired James Gunn to take charge of the third part of the Guardians.
In this way, what had begun as a tragedy became a double opportunity for the filmmaker, who now He would direct both for DC with Warner and for Marvel with Disney.
In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, Suicide Squad reached both theaters and the HBO Max streaming platform.
The reviews were positive and having more creative freedom, Gunn even confessed that it was the tape with which he had had the most fun in his entire career.
Without censorship involved, as in Guardians of the Galaxy, the director was able to include sex scenes, bloody violence and much more adult language.
Characters like Ratcatcher (Daniela melchior), Nanue (Sylvester Stallone), Bloodsport (Idris Elbe) and Harley Quinn (margot robbie) became James’s new cocky ones.
However, there was one that caught his attention to the point of thinking about dedicating a separate story to him: Peacemaker, the ‘justice man’ played by John Cena.
Thus, as of this writing, James Gunn has just launched the official Peacemaker series where he seeks to retell an extravagant, fun, and fresh story.
And this is just one more step, because the filmmaker He has already commented that he is looking to carry out another project with DC.