James Gunn recently got one of the most significant promotions in Hollywood when he movies on from directing the best part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to being put in creative control of the entire DC film universe. As such, he will be responsible for how an entire universe of characters is handled through a variety of upcoming DC films and TV series. It’s a job, he says, he’s already had some experience with thanks to Rocket Raccoon.
In a recent appearance on the DC Studios podcast, James Gunn was asked about the difficult task of keeping a character’s tone consistent across multiple projects, and even multiple mediums, such as Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag appearing in both the animated Creature Commandos and the live-action upcoming Superman movie. Gunn says keeping that tone consistent among DC characters is very important to him, as it was working with Marvel. He explained…
I would get scripts with Rocket in them that didn't match how I understood [the character] – that character was my soul. So I would always make sure that his voice always made sense, that what he did always made sense. And I do that with the characters in DC across all the films and television shows. They've got to be true to the character, especially if it's a character that I originated on film.
While the first chapter of the DCU is only just getting underway, we know that, as with Marvel, we’re going to see multiple characters appear in many different projects, all from different creative voices. Certainly, two different screenwriters aren’t going to write Superman exactly the same way, but that runs the risk of making him do something that might be out of character based on what the past, or future, plans for the character are.
It seems James Gunn has some experience with fixing the tone for his creations. It sounds like one of the MCU movies where Rocket appeared outside of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, once had him saying or doing something that Gunn didn’t feel was right for the character.
Gunn's love for Rocket is well known. Rocket only appeared in three films outside of the Guardians movies: Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Thor: Love and Thunder. It sounds like in at least one of these films, Gunn took issue with Rocket's initial portrayal, and so he got involved to make sure Rocket “made sense.” He'll now be doing that on a grand scale.
Since Gunn says he’s particularly protective of those characters that he originated on film, we can expect that he will be paying close attention to how Superman is handled when he appears in other films. Of course, we don’t even know what James Gunn’s Superman is like as a character yet. That day will come very soon, however. As Superman is only a couple of weeks away.
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