James Gunn Seemingly Admits That "Life And Death Of The DC Brand" Hinged On 'Superman's' Success

DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn seemingly admitted that the “life and death of the DC brand” hinged on the success of his Superman movie.

In a recent appearance on Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, Gunn was asked by host Anthony D’Alessandro, “How do you feel about getting your DC off the ground? There’s gotta be a great sense of relief.”

Gunn replied, “It is. That’s all it is, Anthony. It's really just an enormous sense of relief. It's not only relief. It’s relief, and then followed very quickly by excitement because Superman in some ways was the proof of concept. It was so, so hard. In the same way that Guardians [of the Galaxy] was so, so hard. And once you're kind of in the groove, you realize, 'Oh, this is what works. This is what doesn't. This is where we can go with this.’”

“It means now we have the freedom to tell these other stories in a way that's really exciting,” he continued. “Now, I can just be creative and I don't have to be as concerned with the life and death of the DC brand as I was a month and a half ago."

When asked what the response to Superman tells him about the audience, Gunn answered, “I feel really embraced by the audience. My feeling is that the movie spoke to people, but I think also it also spoke to people because there was a reason for its existence. There was this message of kindness that spoke to people."

“And that doesn't mean every story I'm going to tell is a message of kindness; it just means there needs to be a reason for the story to be told. You can't just be piling on stuff because it's the characters that people have liked,” he said.

Gunn’ Superman has grossed $343 million domestically and another $255.5 million internationally for a global gross of $598.5 million. It has sold 30,327,499 tickets domestically.

What do you make of Gunn’s comments?

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