James Gunn Responds To Extreme Snyderverse Fans Planning To Ruin ‘Superman’ Release, But They Aren’t What He Should Be Worried About
James Gunn’s Superman could have a tough time. While even its harshest critics want to give it a chance, there are people who go beyond feeling the opposite. Some detractors go beyond mere dissatisfaction or skepticism of Gunn, and actively want it to fail.
In his recent Rolling Stone interview, Gunn acted nonchalant and even welcomed the negativity as it provides balance to public perception. He brought up an example in the sneak peek attached to A Minecraft Movie that got people upset, and also explained that his actors get more riled up than he does.
“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% positive. These people help us, because you don’t want everything to seem 100% positive,’” Gunn began.
“It’s all right to have an opposing force every once in a while. 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,” he continued.
Not all those who are displeased are anonymous, random kooks on social media; the Geeks + Gamers YouTube channel and many of the top streamers they know have been critical of Superman clips and sneak peeks, including the Minecraft one. However, they aren’t going to the lengths that a few of the most extreme Zack Snyder supporters are.
On Reddit, a discussion was started on the r/SnyderCut subreddit to implore Snyder fans who can be considered extremists to sabotage Superman’s release with heavy widespread spoilers, negative review bombing, and hindering of ticket sales. The writer urges his followers to reserve them online without completing a purchase. This is supposed to stop “Gunnbots” from buying them.
Gunn was shown images of this post on Threads, including a close-up of the tag “ifwecanthaveoursupermannoonecan,” and he laughed it off. “LOL. I think we’ll 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,” he said.
Gunn might be laughing now, but something else is impacting “the course of events” for his bottom line right now, and it isn’t funny for him, DC Studios’ hopes, or Warner Bros. We’re sure it also has nothing to do with Snyder Bros.
Tracking for Superman on its opening weekend, which was initially high, just plummeted to a baseline level. Until now, a $125 million opening was the low-end estimate, but an update predicts that might be the highest number DC/Warner can expect. The lowest estimate has changed to $90M.
As Cosmic Book News points out, the projections are all over the map, and sites like Deadline are tripping over themselves to spin as much data as they can into a positive. However, all their math and figures won’t matter when the fervor of early ticket sales dies down. That transparent phenomenon puts the cart before the horse to begin with.
Superman also ranks high in brand recognition, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to excitement for Gunn’s movie. In a different metric of “must-see,” the new film trails behind Thor: Love and Thunder, The Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – each of which was affected by COVID somewhere along the way. It also doesn’t compare to Captain America: Brave New World.
“Captain America: Brave New World had a first choice score 71% higher than Superman‘s at the same stage, and it only opened to $88.8M,” CBN noted. The site also notes BNW “mega-bombed so bad a the box office that Disney named it in its investor report as being a loss for them.”
Saying all that, though, CBN sees a chance for Superman to bring in the fans with its marketing and do well opposite Jurassic World: Rebirth and Fantastic Four: First Steps which don’t have the same level of hype. In fact, CBN published an article a few weeks ago detailing why JWR could bomb hard.
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