James Gunn calls superhero movies lazy saying there’s ‘no rhyme or reason to what’s happening’

James Gunn I recently had a conversation about superhero movies and how there are too many of them now with lazy filmmaking and storytelling. Superhero fatigue is real, it has taken hold and the reason is the lazy storytelling! It’s not as strong as it once was.

While a guest on the Inside of You podcast, Gunn explained that DC Studios won’t be “overextending” with content as it begins building the DC Cinematic Universe that will launch with Superman: Legacy. He said, “We’re going to be very careful with the product we put out and make sure everything is as good as possible.”

Gunn went on to point out that lazy storytelling is a big deal right now, saying:

“People have gotten really lazy with their superhero stories, and it’s gotten to the point where, ‘Oh, he’s a superhero, let’s make a movie about him.’ And then, ‘Oh, let’s do a sequel, because the first one did pretty well,’ and they’re not thinking, ‘Why is this story special? What distinguishes this story from other stories? What is the story at the heart of it all? Why is this character important? What makes this story different than satisfying people’s need in theaters to go see?’

“People have gotten a little lazy and there’s a lot of biff, pow, bam stuff that happens in movies and I’m watching third act superhero movies where I really don’t feel like there’s a rhyme or reason for that what’s going on… i don’t care about the characters AND they’ve gotten too generic.

True, we’ve seen it with DC over the years and we’re seeing it with Marvel Studios now as well. This laziness also extends to other films outside of the superhero genre.

Speaking about the solution to the problem, Gunn said “having very different genres” within the larger superhero movie genre versus “this kind of genre and mediocre tone that so many superhero movies have.” He added:

“I like very serious superhero movies and I like very comedic superhero movies. I like ones that are a murder mystery but that’s with superheroes. I like seeing these different kinds of stories, instead of seeing the same story told over and over again.

Look, I’ve always said that as long as these studios make great movies that tell great stories, I’ll keep showing up to watch them. The quality of many of these films has definitely gone downhill, and that’s sad. It’s like they’ve lost focus on the story and what makes these characters so damn interesting. The last big comic book movies that came out were Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3directed by Gunn, e Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. That movie just told a great story with its characters.

I hope these studios start focusing on the story and characters again because fans and audiences will give up on them if the quality goes down! We’re already seeing it happen, people will stop paying to watch these movies if they’re not good. I never wanted to see superhero movie fatigue kick in, but here we are, and the way to save that is to raise the quality of the movies that get made.

What do you think about all this?