The vocal section of the DCU fandom who don’t care much for James Gunn at all were left furious when the filmmaker compared himself to Superman when reflecting on the qualities that made him the ideal candidate to write and direct upcoming reboot Legacy.
Given how often the Marvel Cinematic Universe stalwart gets dragged over the hot coals of criticism by his most heated of opponents for the style he’s cultivated over the last decade and a half, having the gall to draw a direct throughline between his own personality and one of the most iconic superheroes of all-time made their blood boil.
Of course, that’s going to happen whatever he says or does now that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has drawn a line under his tenure with the industry’s other comic book conglomerate, but Gunn has still shifted his impulses elsewhere to make another unexpected comparison to a well-known figure after name-checking Kenny Rogers in an interview with Collider.
“I really believe that the lyrics of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” have all the clues for being a filmmaker, which is, you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run. And that is with every single thing that I do on the movie. You have to know when to fight and you need to know when to chill out and back down, and that has to do with other filmmakers, it has to do with actors, it has to do with producers, it has to do with studio heads. You have to know how to sort of ooze your way through things in a kind way.”
You see what he’s aiming for, but a soundbite of the DC Studios co-CEO iterating that he’s planning to draw inspiration from a Kenny Rogers song to craft a sustainable shared mythology is almost inevitably going to enrage his haters even further. He can’t win at this stage, but he can if Superman: Legacy follows the same trajectory as the rest of his superhero blockbusters and turns out to be a top-tier contribution to the genre.