James Gunn Doesn’t Expect Lengthy Superman Reshoots, if Any
If ever there was a movie you could believe would get it right the first time, it’s Superman. Reshoots have become de rigueur for big blockbuster movies lately, with many Marvel films going through so many that the movie is essentially being remade. Not only does this sound ridiculously inefficient, but it causes the film’s budget to shoot up into the stratosphere, necessitating everything to make somewhere close to $1 billion to break even. But James Gunn appears to buck that trend, as his answers to some fan questions on Threads reveal. Gunn recently announced that he had finished filming Superman, the first movie in his upcoming DCU starring David Corenswet as the Man of Steel and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. When a fan asked if this included reshoots, Gunn answered surprisingly:
I find this refreshing. Obviously, the most important thing is that the movie ends up being good, but I don’t think massive reshoots signal a project getting better. They usually suggest that it wasn’t properly planned or is being changed radically based on test audiences or an unhappy studio. And I’m not talking about the usual stuff, like a different angle to better reflect the director’s intent or a scene that just doesn’t work; I understand things like that happen to the best artists. I mean what’s been going on with Captain America: Brave New World, or what was purported to have happened with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, or what I strongly believe happened to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. These are the equivalent of making a whole new movie. But what’s even better are the ways Gunn says he avoids reshoots:
Look, I have my doubts about Gunn’s Superman (although I really want to love it), but I’m glad he at least has a vision for the movie, that there was a script he liked and had all set before shooting began, and that he trusts the cast and crew to help him make something special. You would think these would be no-brainers, but this is the era in which the release date is more important than the script. It’s the drawback of having these grand shared universe plans, and I get that there has to be a certain amount of grid-plotting with release dates, but movies are going into production without screenplays, something Gunn previously identified as one of the major reasons so many superhero movies suck now. At least honest thought and effort are going into Superman at every stage, not just positioning it to clean up over a particular opening weekend.
Reading this, the director Gunn most reminds me of is Clint Eastwood. That sounds funny to say because they make very different films, but Gunn seems to approach filmmaking in a similar fashion to Eastwood, who is known as an economical director who finishes his movies under budget and ahead of schedule. Particularly, what Gunn says about hiring the right actors mirrors Eastwood’s philosophy. Eastwood famously doesn’t “direct” actors; he says he trusts them to do their jobs the right way as professionals. (I recall a story about Matt Damon once asking if he could have another take and Eastwood saying, “Why? You want to waste everybody’s time?”) Some of these things are probably easier for Eastwood, as he tends to make smaller, more intimate films that don’t require a lot of special effects and cost relatively little money. But on the actor front, it may involve even more trust from Eastwood, whose movies rely heavily on the performances without big action scenes backing them up. Then again, Gunn is working with Superman; that’s a character people have a very particular idea of, and whoever is playing him has to get it right. It’s interesting to think about.
Let us know what you think of James Gunn’s expected lack of Superman reshoots in the comments!
