(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN MURPHY AND DAVID FLEMING'S "THEME FROM SUPERMAN (OFFICIAL TRAILER VERSION)")
SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
"Superman" soared to the top of the box office charts this weekend with $125 million in ticket sales. And that's just in the U.S. It's the third-highest opening weekend for a film this year.
A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: Yeah, "Superman" is certainly one of the best-reviewed DC superhero movies in quite a while. And that probably is a huge relief to the folks at DC Studios. Some fans have seen their recent cinematic efforts as anything but heroic. DC Studios changed course a few years ago when they hired James Gunn as their new co-CEO. Gunn's the guy behind the "Guardians Of The Galaxy" franchise, and now "Superman" marks his first feature film at DC. I sat down with Gunn just before its release. Now, you may have heard the "Superman" part of our conversation on Thursday's show. Today, it's how he's bringing a new energy to films coming out of DC Studios and what things might look like in the future.
JAMES GUNN: The main thing we wanted to bring was a sort of consistency, not in terms of tone because one of the things that we want to do is all of our DC Studios projects are very different from each other. So we have "Superman," then we have "Peacemaker" Season 2, which is a pretty gritty, grounded R-rated show. Then we have "Lanterns," which is a very grounded HBO show. Then we have "Supergirl," which is a space fantasy, then we have "Clayface," which is an all-out R-rated horror movie. And, you know, I want those things to be different. But I felt like the DC characters were just sort of sold off to anyone that wanted to take them, and there was nobody really minding the mint.
MARTÍNEZ: Because for a little while there - and maybe it's still happening - I kept hearing the phrase superhero fatigue.
GUNN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: For people that got superhero fatigue, what do you think it was? Oversaturation? Maybe the stories weren't good. What do you think it was?
GUNN: I don't really think there was ever superhero fatigue, but I do think there was sort of a superhero gold rush for a minute. So I think there was a moment when anything with a superhero in it was making money. You know, visual effects allowed these movies to really shine and come out and attract people's attention. And then after a while, people kind of got sick - they're like, I have to - there has to be something else here for me to see this movie. There has to be something outside of just it being another superhero movie. That's not going to get me by itself. And a lot of bad movies came out. So, yeah, I think that now people need a reason to go to the movies.
MARTÍNEZ: So a lot of people are not going to the movie theaters as much as they used to.
GUNN: Yeah, doing pretty good now. We're doing OK. Like, it's this past few...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GUNN: ...Months. It's, like, it's been pretty good.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GUNN: People are going back to the movies. There were too many crappy movies. That's...
MARTÍNEZ: That was it?
GUNN: That's all it is.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
GUNN: We've come upon this point in the movie industry that's an absolute mess, which is people are going to see big spectacle films. That's all they're going to see. Maybe a horror movie. That's it. Other than that, it's going to be really hard to go make, you know, those sort of medium-sized movies that people go see. They happen, but they're anomalies. People stay home to watch that stuff. But they do love going to a big spectacle movie if it works. But we're living in an industry now where IP drives the movies, and what happens is release dates drive the creative process. So they set up a release date. They don't have a script. And then they try to write the script to back into that date.
MARTÍNEZ: Oof. Yikes.
GUNN: And they're finishing the scripts - like, literally 80% of the time that a big movie is being made, they're finishing the scripts while the movie is being shot. And it's terrible because the movies are bad. It has to be script-based, and it's hard to write a script. You have to be in the right moment at the right time with the right writer, and there aren't enough good writers to go around.
And the other problem is that TV has stolen most of the good writers. Most of the good writers are going to go to TV, where they're in charge. They get to do what they want. And now that's the place for artistry. Like, you can do crazy TV shows like "Severance," you know, or "Peacemaker," which are crazy shows that are completely outside of the box, and they're enormous hits. So you get to do whatever you want in TV and make more money and be the boss. So who's out there writing screenplays, you know?
And one of the things we're doing at DC is we're trying to elevate the writer. The writer is important. The writer needs to get paid the appropriate amount. The writer needs to be a part of, you know, the process as we choose, you know, actors and we look at everything. The writer is important, and they've just been diminished so much over the past, you know, 20 years that it's horrifying. And that's the reason why movies are bad.
MARTÍNEZ: I've watched hundreds and hundreds of movies over my lifetime. And one of the things that happens when there's a movie that I really like, that I really enjoy and I actually think this through as I'm getting to what seems to be, like, the end. Say it's about - maybe half an hour to go or 20 minutes. I say, please don't let me down with the ending.
GUNN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: Please don't let me down.
GUNN: Oh, yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: 'Cause I don't want to just end it on a bad note. It's like taking a last bite of a great meal, and it's a bad bite.
GUNN: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: And that's what you remember, right?
GUNN: One of the problems is that when they're writing these screenplays that aren't finished, you're getting the first act. And you're often in a first act that's great, but you can't write a first act that doesn't relate to the last act. So if the last act isn't written, movies don't work like that. Plots don't work like that. They're a piece of - you know, it's like a clock, you know, where everything has to fit and work together. And I've seen it happen again and again, and it irritates the hell out of me. And as much as I go out there and keep, you know, talking about it, they still keep doing it, and it's crazy. But I'll never do it. I will never do it.
I just stopped - you know, we had a screenplay that - you know, a movie that was greenlit. We went about. We got second draft and third draft, and it just wasn't changing. It wasn't getting better. It was staying in the same place. And I said, we can't make this film. We can't. It's not good. We know it's not good. Just because we have a good director attached and a good screenwriter, it doesn't mean the script is working. It's - everyone is going to be upset at the end of this. It's going to come out, the movie's not going to be good. Director's going to look bad, screenwriter's going to look bad and we're going to look bad. So I don't want to have this. We're not going to make the movie. And so we killed it.
I would be surprised if it's ever happened at a studio 'cause that's just not the way things work. People are really excited to have something greenlit, and then they go and they just make it because they have to say yes to everybody, and they don't want to disappoint everybody. You know, for all the talk of the movie business being so based on dollars and cents, it is based on like me, like me, like me, like me, like me. And it's terrible. People don't want to be not liked. They don't want to let people down, and it's terrible. It's not good for anyone.
MARTÍNEZ: That is James Gunn. He is the writer and director of "Superman." James, thank you for coming in.
GUNN: Ah, thank you. It's great.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN MURPHY AND DAVID FLEMING'S "THEME FROM SUPERMAN (OFFICIAL TRAILER VERSION)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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