Movie-goers can likely expect years of on-going debates between DC and Marvel fans about the qualities of the DC Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so let's get this one out of the way up front: at the beginning of every MCU movie, the Marvel logo is featured with epic fanfare and animation recalling the long history of the brand, but folks going to see James Gunn's Superman this weekend will find that the presentation of the DC logo is far simpler.
So why is it so different? According to the writer/director/co-CEO of DC Studios, it's a mixture of two things: cost and a desire to not interfere with the experience of the movie.
As captured in the video above, CinemaBlend's Jeff McCobb asked James Gunn about the DC Studios logo during the Los Angeles press day for Superman last month, and in addressing the contrast with Marvel Studios, he explained why it's different. At first, he jokingly threw his DC Studios partner Peter Safran under the bus, saying that he wasn't willing to spend the cash – but then he admitted that he himself balked at the price of a flashier intro and noted that the money was better spent bringing Superman's dog Krypto to life. Said Gunn,
Peter Safran is too cheap to push for a big, animated, Marvel-esque thing. [laugh] I remember we talked to one of our marketing guys at the beginning, and we were saying, ‘We want a new intro’ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, ‘Ok, well, it's going to cost about $2 million’ and this and that. I'm like, ‘We're not going to spend $2 million on that. I got a CGI dog I want to make.’
It wasn't simply about not further inflating the film's budget, however. It's also an aesthetic choice for the filmmaker. James Gunn has the distinction of being the only Marvel Studios director who has gone on to make movies for DC (briefly putting aside the fact that he now runs it), so he has first hand experience of how a studio intro might become a touch too much. He didn't specifically name which Guardians of the Galaxy movie he feels is impacted this, but he continued,
But I do like the simplicity and elegance of it. I did find sometimes with other things I've had to deal with it, just with both the DC and Marvel, they were both so long that it almost became too much a part of the movie itself, as opposed to just being the stamp on it. And sometimes it worked really well, but sometimes it didn't. It seemed to be too unwieldy.
Of course, it should be noted that Marvel Studios' logo has changed over the years, as the intros that played in front of Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* earlier this year is totally different than what was created for Iron Man back in 2008. It's very possible that in 10 years, the DC Studios logo will look more like what the Marvel Studios logo looks like today.
For now, however, James Gunn appreciates both the minimalist approach and how it touches back to DC's origins:
I wanted to make something really simple, and I liked harkening back to the original Superman. And, you know, the thing that started all of this was that, so I like the history of it.
There is certainly a whole lot of classic comic book spirit in Superman, which arrives in theaters this weekend riding a wave of incredibly positive buzz (I personally have contributed to that wave with my four-and-a-half star review for CinemaBlend). It's a great big screen foundation for what James Gunn wants to ultimately build with the DC Universe – and that starts with a simple yet still stylish studio logo.
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