Looking back, nobody in a million years would have been able to predict where James Gunn would end up just a dozen years after he made his first foray into the superhero genre with the aptly-titled Super.
After all, the brutal R-rated black comedy didn’t fare particularly well with either critics or audiences – as evidenced by decidedly lukewarm Rotten Tomatoes scores of just 49 and 56 percent – while it even managed to crater at the box office in spite of its modest budget after earning a miserly $593,000 against production costs of $2 million.
And yet, there we are a dozen years on, and Gunn is one of the most powerful and influential figures in the entire world of comic books. Having segued from street-level costumed crimefighters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Guardians of the Galaxy, his firing saw him cross town over to DC, where delivered The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, before he ventured back into Kevin Feige’s bosom to round out his trilogy prior to assuming control of the competition as its co-CEO.
Anyone who watched Rainn Wilson tell crime to shut up before bludgeoning them half to death would have laughed in your face had you told them at the time the guy who wrote and directed Super would go on to not just deliver six consecutive acclaimed comic book adaptations, but end up as the creative mastermind behind a multi-billion dollar shared universe.
It’s funny how the world works, and looking at how FlixPatrol has named Super as one of the most popular movies on iTunes over the weekend, users are dipping into the past to see where Gunn’s own legacy began.
