It’s no secret that superhero movies are everywhere. Despite their box office draw, plenty of acclaimed filmmakers have taken umbrage with the genre. The latest of these is Steven Soderbergh, who recently dropped f-bombs regarding the lack of sex in those blockbusters. And James Gunn has shared some superhero sex scenes in response to that viral complaint.
James Gunn is a major figure in the comic book genre, having directed acclaimed projects for both Marvel and DC. So it should come as no surprise that the irreverent filmmaker weighed in on Steven Soderbergh’s comments about the lack of sex scenes, which lamented that "Nobody's fucking!" Gunn shared his own opinion on social media, posting:
With all due respect, Steven Soderbergh, some people are fucking. pic.twitter.com/vPFQkXqLJJFebruary 8, 2022
Well, there you have it. While some comic book movies are sexless, James Gunn definitely isn’t a filmmaker who has gone that route. As we can see from various stills he posted from superhero projects that he’s made for both TV and film. Let’s break down what we’re being shown here.
The above post comes to us from James Gunn’s personal Twitter. He’s super active on social media, often using it to directly communicate with fans of his work. And once Steven Soderbergh’s criticism of the genre went viral, Gunn shared images from his work. Here we see post-coital scenes from The Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Peacemaker.
In addition to posting stills from his various comic book projects, James Gunn took the time to respond more fully to Steven Soderbergh’s assessment of the genre as a whole. Because while his characters engage in sex, not all superhero flicks contain such carnal sequences. He named some filmmakers who are on the same page as him, saying:
Me & Zack Snyder & Richard Donner & Chloé Zhao & Tim Miller off the top of my head. But, to Soderbergh’s credit, sex seems to be nonexistent in many comic book films, so it’s not like his statement is groundless.
For those unfamiliar, Steven Soderbergh’s viral comments come from a recent interview with The Daily Beast about his career and the film industry as a whole. Eventually the massive popularity of comic book movies was brought up, where the Erin Brockovich director dropped multiple F-bombs about the lack of sexuality in the genre. As he put it,
Also, for a lot of these, for me to understand the world and how to write or supervise the writing of the story and the characters — apart from the fact that I can bend time and defy gravity and shoot beams out of my fingers — there's no fucking. Nobody's fucking! Like, I don't know how to tell people how to behave in a world in which that is not a thing…the fantasy-spectacle universe, as far as I can tell, typically doesn't involve a lot of fucking, and also things like — who's paying these people? Who do they work for? How does this job come to be?
Of course, there have been some glaring exceptions to this assessment, with James Gunn personally naming a few filmmakers. Zack Snyder had some graphic sex in Watchmen, while Chloé Zhao’s Eternals had the MCU’s first sex scene. Then there’s Tim Miller’s Deadpool, which had an entire sex montage for Ryan Reynolds’ character.
James Gunn is currently working on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 which is expected to arrive in theaters on May 23rd, 2023. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
