James Gunn responded on Threads to an online movement from Zack Snyder fans that seeks to negatively impact the potential success of Gunn’s “Superman,” which kicks off the new DC Universe that is being shaped by the writer-director and his DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran. Snyder was in charge of the last DC Universe, which kicked off with “Man of Steel” but fizzled out amid critical bombs like “Justice League,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and more.
“Stand up and fight for SnyderVerse on July 11,” one Reddit user posted. “Fight for our SnyderVerse on the imposter ‘Superman’ release day. Here’s what we can do to make a difference: 1. Post spoilers everywhere. People are less likely to see or enjoy the movie if it’s already spoiled; 2. Leave bad rating on review sites. We know for sure gunn-bots will post fake positive reviews so we must let people know the truth and balance the bias out with realistic scores; 3. Reserve tickets online but don’t complete the purchase. By selecting and reserving tickets, it gets taken out of the pool for a period of time which means this has a chance of stopping gunn-bots from buying tickets.”
The Reddit user added that “Gunn fired the first shot and killed the SnyderVerse and here is our chance to take the fight back to him.”
Gunn responded with a short takedown: “I think we will survive. I’m not sure the eight people that listen to that guy (I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s a guy) are going to impact the course of events.”
The director then elaborated on the topic in a new interview with Rolling Stone, saying: “I don’t mind it. I think it’s good. I think you don’t wanna have everybody root for you, And I have an actor who reads everything online. I won’t say who it is, but he’ll read this article, and he’ll know who it is. It’s one of the top five in Superman. And this actor gets so upset over things that people say. I said, ‘First of all, you realize that the trailer came out and [reaction] was 97, 98 percent positive. These people help us, because you don’t want everything to seem 100 percent positive.’”
“It’s all right to have an opposing force every once in a while,” Gunn continued. “Some of the things get ridiculous — I just know that every time something comes out, it doesn’t matter how positively received, there’s gonna be something that is of great controversy. It was great controversy that the sun caused Superman pain.”
The upcoming “Superman” stars David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, a role famously played by Henry Cavill in Snyder’s previous DC Universe. Gunn revealed on X shortly after taking over DC Studios that he had touched base with Snyder and there were no hard feelings between them. Earlier this month in an interview with Fandango, Gunn even revealed that he consulted with Snyder when it came to designing the new Superman suit and whether or not to add the red trunks.
“One of the biggest questions was, ‘Were we gonna have trunks, or were we gonna not have trunks?’” Gunn said. “I talked to Zack Snyder, who was like, ‘I tried a billion different versions with the trunks, and at the end of the day, I tried it, but I just couldn’t get there.’ And I was feeling exactly the same way. … Theoretically, I liked the idea of trunks because it’s the Superman I grew up with.”
“Superman” opens in theaters July 11 from Warner Bros.
