James Gunn Talks ‘Superman’ At Trailer Press Conference

The first official teaser trailer for James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ released today and earlier this week a special press conference was held at the Warner Brothers Lot. During the conference he was interviewed by Erik Davis, where he gave insight into his choices for the film and what to expect, and also answered questions from members of the press.

James Gunn started by saying how “remarkably fluid” the process of making this film was and that cutting the trailer was much more difficult than cutting the film itself. He explained the difficulty was to get the trailer in a place where it accurately reflected what this film was. He expanded on that by saying the film was “optimistic, but not without its darker moments. It’s a big science fiction movie, but at the same time is incredibly grounded in the way we treat the characters and everything else. I wanted it to be something that was the essence of Superman, something that was the Superman that I grew up with and loved, but also something new at the same time“.

Gunn went onto talk about seeing the introductions of important characters such as Lois Lane, Lex Luthor and Krypto, and seeing their relationship, which according to Gunn is “unlike anything we’ve ever seen in any media“. He joked that once the women in his life saw the images of Nick Hoult as Lex Luthor, they decided they were into bald men and went onto say that this Lex Luthor is the most intimidating badass and he has his reasons for what he’s doing. When discussing Krypto The Superdog and his role in the film James Gunn described him as a terrible dog, but a loveable one and that he comes across as a better dog in the trailer than he actually is in the movie.

Isabel Sanchez from Objectivo TV asked “The little glimpses we’ve seen are reminiscent of classic designs but also introduced something new, how did you balance that in the film?” Gunn went onto explain that he “was trying to balance what was classic and what was completely new, which can be brave at times because Superman is such a big character. When I came and started doing Guardians Of The Galaxy, nobody knew who they were, so there were 12 people in the world that were upset because Yandu didn’t have a fin in the first movie. That was like the extent of the outrage that happened over something that wasn’t the way they envisioned it. Superman is one of the most popular characters, famous characters in the world and everyone has their idea of what he should be like, what his costumes should look like, what his morals should be, what his power set is. And so finding something that was as true and as authentic as I could possibly make it, because at the end of the day if I can make something that’s authentic, then I think it works. There was a lot of trial an error, for example with the VFX folks and what we make are giant monsters and robots look like to give it that feeling of the Silver Age stuff. But again also to see those things in a grounded way that we haven’t seen them before“.

He went on to talk about the score by Ryan Murphy and how he added this new spin on the iconic John Williams score. He said the score was the thing that he loved when he first saw Superman: The Movie as a child, so he wanted to pay tribute to that but also add to it as this is a score-based movie. He claims that they have worked on the score just as hard as they have worked on the entire movie and even started work on it before the screenplay was finished. James Gunn said “Murphy just took to the challenge and made something really beautiful and has done something miraculous which again is a mix of the new and the traditional in a way we haven’t quite seen”.

Gunn also went onto share that the reason he decided to kick start the new DC Studios Universe with Superman was mostly because he had started writing it even before he came to DC Studios. But also because Superman is the first superhero and we haven’t seen enough of him on the movie screens, he explained “being able to take Superman and play with that character was something that I was excited about“.

When talking about the chemistry between David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, Gunn confirmed that during the auditioning process they put three potential Superman actors and three potential Lois Lane actors together. He went onto explain “whilst David and Rachel were incredible individually, when we brought them together there was an electricity in the room that was palpable. Part of it is the steaminess and sexiness of it, but part of it is also just the way that they bounce off of each other. Yeah he’s the man of steel, but man she’s a force to be reckoned with and you can see there’s a way in which she can mow him down. In the teaser trailer there is no dialogue between them yet you feel that bond there and that’s undeniable“.

When discussing the suit design Gunn had a concept of what he wanted the suit to be an instantly knew it would feature the Kingdom Come symbol, so much so that when he handed the script to Peter Safran, it had that iconic symbol on the cover. He went onto explain that some things he knew what to do with the suit, whilst some things were also trial and error. One thing he knew is that he didn’t want to use airbrushed muscles or suits that were too padded. David Corenswet himself (who Gunn describes as a wonderful collaborator) put things into perspective for James Gunn when he first tried on the colourful suit by saying “he’s an alien and he wants kids to like him, he doesn’t want to be scary and imposing“.

James Gunn’s ‘Superman‘ is set for release on 11th July 2025.