Strange things are happening in the brave new world of DC … or at least in the social media echo chamber that surrounds James Gunn’s all-new, all-different DC Universe. This is the guy who, when working for rival Marvel, successfully managed to deliver some of the most impressively extended ensemble superhero storylines yet seen on the big screen, in the bombastic form of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
A talking raccoon whom few outside of the most serious Marvel comics fans had heard of previously, who teams up with someone called Star Lord and a walking tree for madcap adventures in the cosmos? These films, in which far-out aliens we’ve never heard of seem to pop up every few minutes, are the very definition of multi-linear, decentralised storytelling on the big screen. And yet here Gunn is on Threads (via Deadline), dismissing what he describes as “cameo porn” and proudly describing forthcoming DC party starter Superman: Legacy as “NOT a large film”, adding: “I mean, not in terms of cast. It’s normal for single-protagonist films to have other characters – much more unusual for them not to.”
On the subject of cameos, Gunn opines: “I call that ‘cameo porn’ and it has been one of the worst elements of recent superhero films. If a character is in [a] film, they have to have a reason to be there story-wise.” And he’s right of course. Both Marvel and DC have teased superheroes on the big screen who ended up barely registering in future episodes. Is this what Gunn is talking about? We have to assume so.
There was Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke / Slade Wilson in 2017’s Justice League, Brett Goldstein’s Hercules in 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, and even Howard the blimmin Duck in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy. How could these appearances be said to have a reason to exist, unless we are to see the characters in future instalments? (Hercules, to be fair, will presumably be back at some point.) Gunn even introduced Sylvester Stallone’s Ravager captain Stakar Ogord in 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, only for the space-faring scoundrel to retain a minimal supporting role in this year’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Is that not the very definition of “cameo porn”?
Superman: Legacy, we are told, will feature Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, among others, so if this is a “single protagonist” superhero flick, it is hardly one that wears its identity loud and proud. Compare this with 1978’s Superman, in which the only other notable (potentially) superpowered entities are various Kryptonians who don’t even make it to Earth during the events of the film.
Gunn has made movies with umpteen superheroes you had never heard of into box office gold, so it is bizarre to see him biting the hand that has fed him. Is this something of a mea culpa, Gunn accepting he has played a part in the homogenisation of comic book flicks, but promising the future will send us into new vistas of originality and linear storytelling? Or is he simply suggesting that the DCU will do things differently to the way Marvel and DC have operated over the past decade – even if he played his own part in building that framework?
Prior to the impressive feats of the early MCU years, few believed it was possible to include multiple superheroes in the same movie without somehow diminishing everyone involved. Even the biggest fans of the early X-Men films would most likely accept that the ensemble approach hardly helped audiences understand the distinct nuances of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm et al. Yet somehow Marvel managed it, offering up heroes such as Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and others in their own origins stories, so that we got to know them before meeting them in more ambitious ensemble tales.
We find ourselves in an era in which a simple tale of a superhero and his efforts to rescue cats from trees, and perhaps defeat the odd human supervillain, doesn’t quite feel like enough – which is testament to the impressive work Marvel has done. Moreover there have still been excellent linear films during this period – DC’s Wonder Woman and the original Iron Man are obvious examples. But it also means Gunn has work to do to convince audiences that dialling down the inter-superhero activities can be the way forward. Especially when he’s inheriting the baton from a marketing-led era during which DC seemed to decide which superheroes needed to beat the living daylights out of each other, and only then build a script around it.
Perhaps that’s where these comments about “cameo porn” come from. If so, Gunn seems to be making something of a rod for his own back. Yet it’s encouraging to see him set a high bar, when the pressure on the film-maker to make a success of Superman: Legacy must already be enough to turn the man of steel himself into a crippled, kryptonite-addled weakling.
