A little over a decade ago, James Gunn had a huge hand in changing the world of comic book movies with the release of Guardians Of The Galaxy, and today, he has a huge hand in sculpting its future. Along with Peter Safran as the co-CEOs of DC Studios, Gunn makes creative decisions that serve as the compass for one of the world’s biggest franchises. There is a lot of pressure on him to properly utilize some of the most beloved characters in the history of fiction, and while that carries a lot of weight, he has the advantage of being able to lean on personal experience.
Developing a wide variety of projects under the umbrella of the DC Universe is likely going to yield a wide variety of responses from mass audiences, and those responses are going to have an impact on decisions made about what comes next. Of course, predicting reactions can present a minefield, as can leaning too heavily on public opinion – but those are lessons that James Gunn has already learned firsthand with the stories of Groot and Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.
The Story Of Groot Taught James Gunn To Be Open To The Unexpected
Late last week, I was part of a small group of journalists invited to the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California for an hour-long conversation with James Gunn and Peter Safran about everything that’s cooking in the DC Universe, and one of the most interesting bits of discussion regarded how the franchise’s slate would be dictated by fan reactions. Gunn said that there are ideas of what constitutes the first chapter of the franchise, dubbed Gods And Monsters, but he cited his experience bringing Groot to the big screen for the first time that one can’t fully map everything out in advance. Said the filmmaker,
It's like any sort of writing exercise where you have a plan, and then you find the magic where you find the magic. And it's the meeting of those two things that comes together where you create something extraordinary, and that's what we're focusing on. But what you don't wanna do is have a... In Guardians of the Galaxy, did we know that Groot was gonna be by far the most popular character when the first movie came out? No way. It was surprising. Not only that, in all of the test screenings and everything, he wasn't the most popular character because he was like a fucking grey stick.
Test screenings are often done with unfinished cuts of a film, and in the case of big blockbusters, that often means unfinished visual effects. In the case of Guardians of the Galaxy, the first people to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie didn’t get to have the full Groot experience – but when people saw the finished work, they fell hard for the living tree.
James Gunn certainly had affection for Groot, but he was taken aback by the response to the character, and it ultimately had an impact on his work on the sequels featuring Groot’s offspring. The “Mr. Bluesky” opening sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 probably doesn’t happen unless Gunn registers and appreciates the love for the extraterrestrial plant. He continued,
So all of a sudden, the movie comes out, he's the most popular character, and then you don't wanna leave that alone. His son becomes a more instrumental character in the other movies. You don't want to let go of the lightning when it strikes. You want to pay attention to what is really working. And then if something isn't working, then it goes down a little bit.
The knife cuts both ways: If people are positively responding to something, that suggests there should be more of it in the future, but if people are responding negatively, that means there should be less… right?
The Story Of Nebula Taught James Gunn To Trust His Gut
There are obvious benefits to a filmmaker taking the audience’s response into consideration when developing a franchise, but it’s an art, not a science. Doing it too much can result in an artist repeating what they have already done or making something homogenized to the point of lacking any perspective or personality. That’s a trap James Gunn knows not to fall into thanks to his insistence in telling the story of Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.
According to James Gunn, there wasn’t a whole lot of love for the alien android following the release of his first MCU movie, and had he entirely depended on audience reaction, the character may not have been back for the sequels. Instead, he trusted his creative instincts, and by the time audiences saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, she became beloved:
Nebula was one of the least popular characters in the first – she was the least popular character when we were screening the first Guardians movie. I loved her. I knew she was something special. And then by the last Guardians movie, she was the favorite or up there with the top three. That's also important!
Continuing, Gunn said that movie-goers can’t always see all of the machinations in a story until all of the big picture ideas play out, and that means sometimes trusting his gut. Said Gunn,
Sometimes I have a plan, and maybe the public doesn't see it originally, but I see it. I saw who Nebula was. I knew this character had an extraordinary arc and change. I related to that character a great deal, so I wasn't gonna give up on her either. So it does work both ways.
How the philosophies of James Gunn and Peter Safran ultimately dictate the slate of upcoming DC movies is something we’ll have to wait and see, but the grand experiment kicks off on the big screen this summer with the release of Superman on July 11 followed by Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow in the summer of 2026. It will be fascinating to see the DC Universe grow, and we will be following its development closely here on CinemaBlend.
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