When it comes to superhero movies, for a long time, James Gunn was chiefly known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and for good reason. With the three Guardians of the Galaxy movies and The Holiday Special (available exclusively to Disney+ subscribers), he catapulted a team of previously obscure characters into pop culture icons. Nowadays though, Gunn is a DC man through and through thanks to his job co-running DC Studios with Peter Safran. And yet, #FireJamesGunn continues to be a viral hashtag on X (formerly known as Twitter), and I have some thoughts on this, though most of them boil down to confusion.
As you’ll see if you look through #FireJamesGunn, the hashtag has started trending again over the last few days. It’s unclear what exactly prompted this latest barrage, but it doesn’t take long to see that these many of these posts come from fans of Zack Snyder’s DC movies, i.e. Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (not to be confused with the theatrical cut of Justice League, which was largely put together by Joss Whedon during extensive reshoots). A good chunk of these posts are also accompanied by the hashtags #RestoreTheSnyderVerse, #boycottwbd and #SellSnyderVerseToNetflix, with the latter referencing these fans’ desire to see Snyder’s Justice League saga completed over at Netflix.
I’m not going to fall down the DC Zack Snyder rabbit hole in this article, though bear in mind that Netflix subscribers already have plenty to look forward to from the filmmaker with Rebel Moon Part 2 and Planet of the Dead, among other projects. Rather, I’m perplexed by all the hate directed at James Gunn considering that, as far as his DC Studios work goes, none of it has actually been seen by the public yet.
Now to be fair, the DC-related vitriol that’s been directed towards James Gunn stretches back to when he was tapped to helm 2021’s The Suicide Squad, and that continued when the spinoff series Peacemaker, which he also wrote and directed, released to Max subscribers. Both those projects were critically well received for the most part, but you’re certainly well within your rights not to like one or either of them. Opinions are subjective, after all.
But beyond that, we’re a ways off from the results of James Gunn creatively driving DC’s media efforts. Yes, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom did all come out in 2023, but all those movies were either completed, or at the very least in postproduction, when Gunn and Safran took the DC Studios reins. They may have helped promote these four movies, but they had nothing to with coming together in the first place.
Although the DC Universe will officially get underway later this year with the Max-exclusive animated series Creature Commandos, both Gunn and Safran have said that they consider 2025’s Superman: Legacy, the first DCU movie, to be the “true beginning” of this new shared continuity. Other projects on the horizon include the movies The Brave and the Bold, The Authority, Superman: Woman of Tomorrow (which will see Milly Alcock playing Kara Zor-El) and Swamp Thing, and the TV shows Waller, Lanterns, Paradise Lost, Booster Gold, a second season of Peacemaker and an Arkham Asylum series.
That’s a lot to look forward to on the upcoming DC movies and upcoming DC TV shows front, but it’s not fair to declare that James Gunn be fired when we haven’t actually seen what he has in store yet for the DCU. I sympathetic to those of you who wish the DCEU was still going, particularly if you were heavily invested in Zack Snyder’s corner of the franchise. But that shared continuity ended with the Aquaman sequel, and while there may come a day when we revisit some of its characters thanks to the DC multiverse, we need to embrace that a new era is coming… well, mostly new era since some people, like John Cena’s Peacemaker, Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller and Xolo Maridueña’s Blue Beetle are among the few sticking around.
I’m not saying that every DC Universe project is going to be a success, and if we regroup several years from now, you’re certainly welcome to voice criticisms for any of them. But let’s cool it with #FireJamesGunn right now and wait to judge the DC Universe based on its own merits. And honestly, even after some of these projects come out, let’s try to be more level-headed with sharing any issues we may have with them rather than immediately jump to wanting the man fired.
