JAMES GUNN

I'M LESS AFRAID NOW'

- BRIAN HIATT.

It’s not hard to find James Gunn’s office on the Warner Bro lot. A huge, glowing Superman “S” symbol beckons from an entrance wall, visible through a glass door from yards away. Gunn, 58, is in his third year as co-CEO of the company’s newly created DC Studios, sharing the title and office with Peter Safran, who handles the business side of the operation. Together, they're creating a new superhero universe around some very old characters, aiming to finally make Superman and friends (and family, and flying pet) truly competitive with the currently shaky Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gunn is a refugee from that universe, after writing and directing his final MCU movie, 2022’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Superman, released on 11 July, is the first feature film set in the new DCU, and arguably one of the highest-stakes movies ever made, though Gunn despises that framing.

He’s an unlikely studio exec, to say the least. He spent his early years trying every conceivable creative outlet: fronting bands, drawing alt-weekly comic strips, acting, performing monologues in dive bars. He also got a Columbia MFA and published a raw, early-2000s debut novel, The Toy Collector, finding a path to his true calling when Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of famed B-movie purveyor Troma Entertainment, paid him $150 to write a screenplay for something called Tromeo and Juliet.