James Gunn has never been shy about engaging with fans online. But as he leads DC Studios into its most ambitious era yet, even he admits that social media can be a double-edged sword. Case in point: a shot from an early Superman TV spot that drew swift criticism online — and led to the director scrapping it entirely from the finished film. For those who don’t recall, the shot is a POV shot of David Corenswet‘s Superman flying, with a wide-angled lens focused fully on his face, and it felt gimmicky and not really in keeping with the rest of the film. More than that, it didn’t even look finished in terms of effects. Turns out, it wasn’t.
“It was a photograph of his face and him flying,” Gunn told Entertainment Weekly of the now-deleted moment. “It was a photograph of a drone flying in front of an actual background. So all the pieces were real, but it was incorporated in kind of a funky way. I didn’t love the shot, so it’s not even the shot that’s in the movie.”
While the online discourse included speculation that the visual was generated by AI, Gunn clarifies it was more of a placeholder than anything. “Sometimes I’m pretty strict about going through each shot in a trailer,” he explains, “but sometimes the commercials, I forget to look at as closely. So that one kind of got by me.”
This kind of transparency has become a hallmark of Gunn’s approach. But even he admits the job’s gotten bigger — and louder — since taking over the DCU. “I think that just happened naturally,” he says of his relationship with social media. “But I’m much, much less active than I ever have been… because it is just too much.”
That doesn’t mean he’s completely tuned out. When a false rumor risks hurting someone’s reputation — like a misreported casting or director attachment — he’s still quick to shut it down. But for the most part, he’s letting the work speak for itself. And Superman, starring Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicholas Hoult, is a big part of that. As for the larger plan of building this new DC Universe, Gunn admits that balancing his roles as director, writer, and DC Studios co-head isn’t easy. “If I try to do everything, it’s too little of any one thing,” he says. “So I need to really focus.”
Superman flies into theaters on July 11.
Source: EW