For any director, the week leading to the release of their film is a tough and testing time. Especially when you are James Gunn, who is trying to reinvent the wheel itself with a movie like Superman. The character has been played by several greats of the game and has been adapted from comics for film, television, animated series and everything in between. While the movie has received positive first reviews, the jury is still out on whether it will be a success or not, and Gunn is definitely putting in the work on the promotional front. During a recent interview, Gunn went on a surprising tangent about his early life and opened up about his journey to becoming a filmmaker.
While sitting down with Dax Shepherd and his co-host Monica, Gunn talked about the troubles he had with addiction while growing up and how the Missouri-born boy had tried everything under the sun before he was even 19. He said, “I did a lot of drugs from the time I was very little. I was already doing speed, and I started using cocaine in college. I did everything, but marijuana was the one that really held on to me. Some days I would just wake up and wait for it to be 10 am so that I could light up a joint, and you just become very blind to the consequences when you are in that situation. I was smoking weed all day long, and I refused to accept that it was a problem.”
He shared how once he got sober, he dropped out of college and started pursuing music professionally, only to return to college a few years later to finish his degree, a decision that would change his life forever. “I wasn’t playing music anymore, so I had to figure out something to do, and I thought I could teach, and so I started learning creative writing. I wrote a play in that class, and I remember the reactions I got when my classmates read the play. I felt seen and appreciated, and that was great.” He added that he actually went to Columbia University to learn writing, but not for learning how to write a screenplay but to become a novelist. The director shared how he was rejected from all his safety schools, like Georgetown and Iowa University, but somehow managed to land a spot at Columbia, which was his first choice.
After several interesting and downright dramatic chapters of his life, Gunn is currently spearheading DC Studios with Peter Safran, and the duo have made some big promises about the future of the company. Superman is the first big step towards that vision, and on July 11, the world will truly know if DC is back in the running or not. The cast of the film includes David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Maria Gabriela De Faria, and more.
