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.”
