14 DAY TRIAL // James Gunn, who wrote and directed one of Marvel’s biggest releases to date, last year’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is quite sick and tired of indie people suggesting that superhero movies are like a plague they have to fight against, that they’re a bad thing to moviemaking in general, or that they’re made with less love and dedication because they’re not art.
If anyone thinks superhero movies are stupid, just like the people who make them, they should just come out and say it instead, Gunn says in a very passionate Facebook post. His comments are a response to those from Dan Gilroy and Jack Black.
Superhero jokes at the biggest industry awards
In all fairness, superhero movies - and blockbusters in general - are always like the nerdy, awkward kid that everyone picks on at the big industry awards. The more “prestigious” the gala, the bigger the odds there will be at least one joke on the topic of the stupidity or profitability of this particular genre.
Last weekend was no exception: first there was director Dan Gilroy (“Nightcrawler”), who took to the stage at the Spirit Independent Awards to remark how the gala had survived a “tsunami of superhero films,” with the implication that said films were threatening to kill creativity and originality in Hollywood.
Then Jack Black poked fun at the superhero genre at the Oscars 2015 the very next day.
James Gunn doesn’t think either instance was funny, because it’s not true, at least where he’s concerned. He doesn’t understand why indie people (or as he calls them, the “self-appointed elite”) feel the need to bash something just because it happens to be mainstream, popular.
Does popularity equal inferior quality? Does a big budget production means it’s made with less thought or passion or dedication? Gunn thinks not.
Art is art, no matter the package you wrap it in
Gunn isn’t denying that movie studios are churning out big-budget releases / superhero films in an obvious bid to make a profit. He doesn’t deny that some directors and writers and actors get on board such projects for the money, because, right now, this is the hottest genre to be working on. Everybody wants a piece of the pie.
However, generalization is never a good thing, he points out.
“There are people who do what they do because they love story-telling, they love cinema, and they want to add back to the world some of the same magic they’ve taken from the works of others. In all honesty, I do no find a strikingly different percentage of those with integrity and those without working within any of these fields of film,” he writes.
He wouldn’t mind if people called his movies dumb, if that’s how they really felt. He does mind, however, when a “serious” filmmaker is trying to make it sound as if he puts more love and effort into his characters than he, Gunn, did in his talking raccoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” or any other director from the Marvel universe.
Gunn is particularly upset by Gilroy’s comment, a “guy whose wife has acted in two Thor films,” Renee Russo. He could have also mentioned that Gilroy, prior to winning over critics with his brilliant work on “Nightcrawler,” wrote the script for “Reel Steel” and “The Bourne Legacy,” which are exactly the kind of movies he was criticizing at last weekend’s event, big-budget productions with a wide appeal.