It’s hard to imagine that in 2010, as the second movie James Gunn wrote and directed was met with very divided reviews and very weak box office results, that he could see a near future where he was running DC Studios. But that is, in fact, what happened. And, looking back at that 2010 movie, Super, it becomes clear that this was always the path the filmmaker was on, even when no one could see it.
Whether Super is a good movie or not isn’t the issue. Some people will like it, some will hate it. When it came out all those years ago, I didn’t like it, but a recent rewatch made me respect it. The movie is a piece of personal art made by a man whose life was going through some rough times in the years leading up to it, and it allowed Gunn to release the rage and anger he was feeling at the world, and had likely been feeling for a long time, so that he could move on and create the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, Peacemaker, and Superman.
Super Is A Movie Filled With Anger
Super was filmed in the last days of 2009 and the start of 2010. For Gunn, it may have felt like a chance to not only start a new decade, but also start the next stage of his movie career. The previous 10 years were surely a mixed bag for him. It kicked off with his marriage to The Office star Jenna Fischer in 2000 — the same year Gunn’s first superhero movie, The Specials, came out — and he saw his career as a writer explode with the success of Scooby-Doo and Dawn of the Dead. But in 2006, Gunn stepped up to the plate and directed the underrated Slither.
The 2006 movie, a fantastically gross horror comedy, was praised by critics, but audiences ignored it. Two years later, Gunn and Fischer decided to end their marriage (though they remain friends). From there, the filmmaker dove into making Super, a movie he had wanted to make since 2002. Now, he was taking it into his own hands and, on a shoestring budget, would honestly pull off something special.
The movie is angry. That can not be denied. The whole thing is a man who has recently become single taking his rage out on the world by dressing up like a superhero and bashing people in the head with a large wrench, believing that doing this will make his wife come back to him. It is violent and bloody and vile, but, in true James Gunn fashion, there is a shocking amount of heart in it. Frank, played by Rainn Wilson, is clearly not well — he has suffered from religious-based visions since he was a child and believes God has chosen his path — but he is not inherently a bad person. His true crime is, as bad guy Kevin Bacon puts it in the movie, that he isn’t interesting.
Frank seems to be a part of James Gunn himself. Like Gunn, Frank grew up in a religious household and tries to see the good in everyone and in himself, but his anger can sometimes get the better of him. On the other side of that is Libby, played brilliantly by Elliot Page. Libby is the other part of Gunn. The side that revels in the gross, and in the mean, and in the anger. And, spoilers for Super: Gunn excises those elements from the movie — and maybe a little bit from himself — by having Libby die in an incredibly violent way without ever trying to redeem the character. But in killing Libby, and perhaps killing that piece of himself, Gunn opened himself up to create what came next.
Without Super, Guardians Of The Galaxy And Superman Could Never Happen
Perhaps Kevin Feige’s greatest talent is recognizing talent. After Super released, it looked like, as far as directing went, James Gunn’s career was pretty much finished. Even Gunn has discussed how, after a while of trying, he had given up on making more movies and turned his attention to TV and video games. Lollipop Chainsaw hit consoles in 2012 and was a big seller. Gunn’s path seemed clear. But then Marvel called.
Somehow, Feige looked at Super and thought, “we should give this guy $200 million, a group of C and D-list characters, and see what happens. And thank goodness he did, because without that kind of thinking, Gunn never would have made Guardians of the Galaxy. And, if Gunn hadn’t had Super to help wash away his darker, more Troma instincts, Guardians would never have worked. To be clear, some of the Troma parts of James Gunn are in all three Guardians movies, and in Peacemaker, but they don’t overtake the heart of the story like they do in Super.
James Gunn’s Superman movie launches the DC Universe in spectacular fashion, with a fun-filled romp that requires refreshingly little homework.
No, instead, those darker, angrier elements are placed onto specific characters or moments — most notably Rocket and Peacemaker — but Gunn knows that the darkness and anger needs to be lifted from them. And, for the part of him that will always love gore — as so many of us do — there’s good old Vigilante, who will never change. But even still, through the three Guardians films and Peacemaker, Gunn continued to clear out his anger. Which led the way to Superman.
Superman does not happen without Super. If James Gunn did not have the chance to dig into a character like Libby laugh maniacally as she blew people up and tried to kill a man who may have keyed a car, only to die a pointless death so that he could introduce the world to Rocket and show us a path to letting all that rage go. Without having the opportunity to show the world Frank, a man who screams, “You don’t butt in line! You don’t sell drugs! You don’t profit on the misery of others!” before stabbing Kevin Bacon in the chest repeatedly, Gunn would still have too much rage in himself to envision a Superman who believes that kindness is the real punk rock.
Is Super a great film? Maybe. Maybe not. But without it, there would be no Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy or Peacemaker, where we see people heal from past trauma and learn to accept the love of others. And there would certainly be no Superman, where we see that even the toughest of us struggle from time to time, but what matters is that we keep trying. And, personally, I like having those stories in the world. And I like the lessons they teach us. And I like seeing the work of a James Gunn who was able to let his anger out and show the world some kindness (but still know when to get a little nasty with it).