A lot has already been made of James Gunn’s decision to make “The Suicide Squad.” We already know the opportunity came about because Disney executives fired the filmmaker from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and suddenly Gunn’s schedule was wide open, leading to a meeting with Warner Bros. about DC superhero projects. And now that it’s clear ‘Suicide Squad’ was a great franchise for him to tackle (the man sure does love his misfits), it’s hard to imagine Gunn working on anything else. That said, apparently, there is still one massive DC superhero he would have thought about working on, if he had the chance—Batman.
Speaking to the Happy. Sad. Confused. podcast, James Gunn once again went over his process for selecting “The Suicide Squad” as his DC superhero film and why he’s not interested in making a “Superman” film, though the executives were pushing it.
As mentioned, the director has already talked about how Warner Bros. was really excited about the idea of Gunn tackling a “Superman” feature. However, the filmmaker just doesn’t connect with that character. But he did have an idea for Superman’s dog, Krypto.
“I considered doing a Krypto movie which I thought would be really fun, but that shows you where my head’s at,” he explained. “I wasn’t interested in doing a [traditional] Superman thing—a superpowered dog from Krypton, running around a city, destroying it, while Superman tries to track him down and get him. That seemed interesting to me.”
But it wasn’t until he watched David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad” film that he had the idea to completely revamp that franchise.
“I started to fall in love with Suicide Squad,” Gunn said. “I watched the last movie for the first time, and I called Walter Hamada, and I said, ‘What do I have to keep from the movie and what do I not have to keep?’ And he said, ‘You don’t have to keep anything. You could change everybody, you could change nobody, we love Margot [Robbie], and we’d love it if she was in the movie, but you don’t have to keep her. You can do whatever you want.’”
He continued, “So then I just started writing this story and it just took off and it was more exciting than all the other ideas I was working on. It just became clear which thing I was most passionate about.”
So, if Gunn isn’t interested in Superman and is much more comfortable writing about a superpowered dog or a team of misfit villains, is there a traditional iconic superhero that he would consider? Well, apparently, yes. Unfortunately, Matt Reeves got there first.
“I’m not saying I’d never be interested in Superman, but if it was Batman, which Matt [Reeves] was already doing, it might’ve felt differently because I understand Batman. I understand Harley Quinn; I don’t understand every character,” he said.
So, there you have it fans—get those “James Gunn must do a ‘Batman’ film” social media campaigns going. Though, understanding what he’s done with “The Suicide Squad,” it would be very interesting to see how he tackled such a self-serious character like Bruce Wayne. How about WB lets him have an Elseworlds movie and make it happen?