Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige accidentally predicted the future when “Superman” director James Gunn first told him he was going to work with DC.
Gunn recalled the prophetic moment during his appearance on this week’s episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast. The “Guardians of the Galaxy” filmmaker revealed how his firing from Marvel in 2018 over some resurfaced, poor-taste joke tweets led to him being hired by Warner Bros. to direct 2021’s “The Suicide Squad.” It apparently all began with former Warner Bros. Chairman Toby Emmerich asking him to direct a “Superman” movie for the studio.
“Toby Emmerich from Warner Bros. at the time came to me. He’s like, ‘James Gunn’s ‘Superman’,” Gunn told “Armchair Expert” host Dax Shepard. “I said, ‘I don’t know, man.’ And then he was like, ‘Well, what about ‘Suicide Squad’?’ So I came up with an idea. I went and pitched it. They were like, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’” When Gunn went home from that meeting, he got a call saying he was going to get his Marvel job back.
That led to an awkward meeting between Gunn and Feige. “I went over to Kevin’s house. I went into his basement where he’s got all his ‘Star Wars’ figures [set up] like a little museum and he said, ‘This is amazing,’” Gunn remembered. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s good, but I have to do something else first.’ And — oh my God, I didn’t remember this until right now — Kevin goes, ‘Ugh, are you doing ‘Superman’?’”
You can watch Gunn’s full “Armchair Expert” interview in the video below.
Feige ultimately gave Gunn his blessing to make “The Suicide Squad” before “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” When asked by Shepard whether or not he felt guilty at the time about working with Marvel’s biggest competitor, Gunn said that he did not. “No. I didn’t feel that way because I was fired,” the filmmaker explained. Gunn was, however, quick to note that he did not make that decision out of spite, either.
“Listen, there are people that I’m not that happy with over there [at Disney], but that certainly wasn’t the Marvel guys, you know? They were completely supportive,” Gunn said. “[Marvel Studios Co-President] Louis D’Esposito called me all the time. Lou and Kevin were great. So it certainly wasn’t them. But I didn’t feel guilt at all. I mean, I had to take a job! I took a job [with] people that I also really liked, and that was it.”
Elsewhere in his “Armchair Expert” interview, Gunn spoke openly about how he felt in the wake of his firing from Marvel, admitting that he thought in the moment his career was over. That, of course, turned out to very much not be the case. Not only did Gunn go on to direct both “The Suicide Squad” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” but he has also taken over as the co-CEO of DC Studios for Warner Bros. and is overseeing the construction of the studio’s new DC Universe.
Now, Gunn is on the verge of unleashing “Superman” onto the world, and the early reactions to the forthcoming blockbuster have been overwhelmingly positive so far.