Written Interview: James Gunn (“Super”)
Today’s interview is with writer-director James Gunn and comes from WGA.org. Gunn’s writing credits include Tromeo and Juliet, Dawn of the Dead (remake), and both Scooby Do movies. Here’s an excerpt of the interview:
The violence felt like Troma-influenced mayhem for the first part of the story, then it took on a Sam Peckinpah feel and really became integral to the story.
For sure it is part of the story. I mean, we love superheroes, and we have somebody like Batman who puts on a cape and cowl and gets to decide who’s right and who’s wrong and who he gets to beat up because they did a bad thing. With Frank, we see somebody who’s putting on a costume and deciding who to beat up and who’s right and who’s wrong and who should be punished and we go, “Wait a second! What the hell is he doing?” Some of these people may or may not deserve to be punished. It’s really questioning the morality of the superhero. There’s almost a fascistic aspect to Batman — especially Batman — that’s not questioned very much.
And the violence in comic books that’s so glorified is kind of taken down to a different level. We see people hitting and punching all the time in these things, but it’s not the real down and dirty, ugly brawls of real life. If you hit somebody with something in the face, they don’t just fall down unconscious like they do in a TV show. Their face is split open and we see blood. So it’s really about showing the other end of the violence that cinema and comic books don’t show us.
I never set out to make a violent film. I set out to tell a story and when someone does something violent, there’s a reaction to that, which is gore. That’s what the story is.