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James Gunn is an American writer and director known for his work on superhero films across both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe.
Gunn started his work as a filmmaker in Troma Entertainment, after which he worked as a writers on films such as the first two live-action Scooby-Doo movies. Gunn made his directing debut on 2010's Slither. However, he wouldn't become known until he directed Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel Studios in 2014, having created a critical and commercial success put of a rather obscure property. He went on to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, in addition to executive-producing Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, both of which made heavy use of the Guardians.
During pre-production on Vol. 3, Gunn was fired by Disney after some insensitive jokes he made on Twitter back in 2012, and regretted ever since, resurfaced. Instead of a slump, however, this only impulsed his career, since the move allowed Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Films to hire him as writer and director of their new Suicide Squad film, which he titled simply The Suicide Squad. While he was rehired to work on Vol. 3, Gunn first finished working on The Suicide Squad. As with Guardians, Gunn made a successful film out of an unexpected property, and his success was only elevated when he released the TV spin-off series Peacemaker in 2022, to universal acclaim.
After establishing such a positive relationship with Warner and DC, the studio heads named him and producer Peter Safran co-CEOs of the new DC Studios. Additionally, Gunn and Safran are personally helming a Soft Reset of the DCEU (the DC Universe) starting with Creature Commandos and Superman, both written by him.
In addition, Gunn co-wrote the videogame Lollipop Chainsaw.
- Adam Westing/As Himself:
- Voiced himself in Season 3 of Harley Quinn as the director of a Thomas Wayne film and worked alongside Clayface.
- Guest-starred in the Rick and Morty episode "Ricker than Fiction" as the Big Bad Wannabe.
- Author Appeal: Lots of Body Horror, from the aliens on Slither deforming human hosts to Nebula's cyborg body on Guardians of the Galaxy, which was not a product of Emergency Transformation like most cyborgs on media, but surgically forced on her. Not surprisingly, one of the major films he wrote but didn't direct was the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.
- Author Tract:
- Gunn is a great advocate for animal rights. The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker both have villains that harm animals without giving a shit and heroes with a deep love for their animal companions, while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has strong pro-animal rights themes and the title character's Berserk Button in Superman is people hurting Krypto the Superdog.
- Nature Versus Nurture, with nurture often prevailing over an outright evil nature. Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Peacemaker, and even Superman(a character who usually seeks to balance this aspect out of respect for his fallen homeland) chose their adoptive parents or parent-like figures over their biological creators through their arcs.
- Central Theme:
- A recurrent theme through his superhero films is how sometimes the best of every living being can come from unexpected places, be it a group of bandits and assassins, a black-ops team of convicts, or a jingoistic killer.
- Another theme in his superhero work is how, through music, bonds can be made and kept even after death.
- Your family is not necessarily your blood relatives, but your loved ones. Star-Lord, Bloodsport, and Peacemaker had horrible biological parents, but found loved ones in their Chosen Family. Unlike most cases, however, he doesn't entirely demonize biological families however, with Drax being established as a loving father and husband before his daughter and wife were killed, and Ratcatcher-2 having a very positive relationship with her father. At the same time, he doesn't entirely sanitize adoptive families either, with Thanos' adoptive daughters Gamora and Nebula both hating him fir the horrible things he did to them. If anything, his take on this theme is more nuanced than most.
- A related theme can be seen as how those willing to hurt children are the utter scumbag of the universe, since Thanos explicitly forced his daughters to be killers and they have a lot of contempt towards him, White Dragon was a piece of shit who abused his son since childhood and forced him to kill his brother as a kid for his personal amusement, and the High Evolutionary being similarly abusive of Rocket since he created him (a process that was in and of itself horrible), the latter two also being deliberate cases pf Hate Sink (Thanos not being one mainly because the film that put him on the spotlight being helmed by different directors). The Suicide Squad features this the strongest, with a willingness to hurt kids being depicted as the Moral Event Horizon.
- Denser and Wackier: His work is on the sillier side of things, particularly on his superhero work, which went as far as including talking raccoons and kaiju-sized alien starfish. Not that they don't tackle serious themes, though.
- Disowned Adaptation: Though he helped out with Avengers: Infinity War, Gunn doesn't think that the Russos managed to effectively write the Guardians.