{"id":385570,"date":"2026-01-03T14:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/385570\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T14:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:25:12","slug":"james-gunn-says-being-a-director-and-head-of-dc-studios-is-the-kind-of-madness-even-walt-disney-wouldnt-attempt-and-he-originally-said-no-to-the-job-because-he-didnt-want-to-do-what-kevin-feig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/385570\/","title":{"rendered":"James Gunn says being a director and head of DC Studios is the kind of &#8220;madness&#8221; even Walt Disney wouldn&#8217;t attempt, and he &#8220;originally said no to the job&#8221; because he &#8220;didn&#8217;t want to do what Kevin Feige does&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"baf137a4-b666-435e-b097-f26ffc5d3d35\"><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/tag\/james-gunn\/\" data-auto-tag-linker=\"true\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/tag\/james-gunn\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Gunn<\/a> has already made quite a splash as co-CEO of DC Studios as well as the director of its first hit, last summer&#8217;s Superman (our pick for <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/superman-captured-my-heart-as-the-2025-movie-of-the-year-with-its-hopeful-rejection-of-cynicism\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/superman-captured-my-heart-as-the-2025-movie-of-the-year-with-its-hopeful-rejection-of-cynicism\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">movie of the year<\/a>). But according to the man himself, he almost didn&#8217;t take the job &#8211; and he&#8217;s not so sure that being both a key filmmaker and a studio executive can last forever.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s ever really been done. Even Walt <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/tag\/disney\/\" data-auto-tag-linker=\"true\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/tag\/disney\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Disney<\/a> was more of a producer than a director. It&#8217;s an experiment. And yes, sometimes it probably sounds like madness &#8211; especially since I don&#8217;t make the most conventional films,&#8221; Gunn tells <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/awards\/james-gunn-superman-prestige-projects-dc-studios-future-1236621830\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/awards\/james-gunn-superman-prestige-projects-dc-studios-future-1236621830\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Variety<\/a>. &#8220;But I love big spectacle. That&#8217;s my jam. I originally said no to the job. I didn&#8217;t want to do what Kevin Feige does. But once [co-CEO Peter Safran] and I realized we&#8217;d be doing it together, it became exciting. I still don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s sustainable long-term. It&#8217;s a lot. There just aren&#8217;t enough hours in the day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" data-url=\"\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"baf137a4-b666-435e-b097-f26ffc5d3d35-2\" class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">DC Studios fans should rest assured that Gunn likely isn&#8217;t going anywhere, as his plans for the movie and TV franchise extend years into the future. It&#8217;s far more likely that Gunn may step back from directing his own projects for a while in favor of focusing on his work as an executive.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Gunn&#8217;s next project as a director is 2027&#8217;s currently in production <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/superman-2-man-of-tomorrow-release-date-cast-plot-trailer\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/superman-2-man-of-tomorrow-release-date-cast-plot-trailer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Man of Tomorrow<\/a>, the sequel to Superman which focuses on Supes having to team up with his arch-enemy Lex Luthor to take on the alien menace <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/superhero-movies\/after-a-worldwide-search-the-dcus-brainiac-has-been-found-and-its-taking-inspiration-from-a-creepy-wonderful-take-on-the-superman-villain\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/superhero-movies\/after-a-worldwide-search-the-dcus-brainiac-has-been-found-and-its-taking-inspiration-from-a-creepy-wonderful-take-on-the-superman-villain\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brainiac, who was just cast for the film<\/a>. Before that, <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/supergirl-release-date-cast-plot-trailer\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/entertainment\/dc-movies\/supergirl-release-date-cast-plot-trailer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Supergirl<\/a> lands in theaters as the next DC Studios film on June 26, followed by Clayface on September 11.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">While we wait for Supergirl and Man of Tomorrow, stay up to date on all the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/upcoming-dc-movies\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.gamesradar.com\/upcoming-dc-movies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">upcoming DC movies and shows<\/a> that are currently in the works.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Bringing all the latest movie news, features, and reviews to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Gunn has already made quite a splash as co-CEO of DC Studios as well as the director&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-385570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}