James Gunn's First Superhero Movie Was A Disaster Behind The Scenes

It's a little baffling that James Gunn is currently the mastermind of an upcoming wave of superhero movies over at Warner Bros. He's the writer/director of the upcoming "Superman," due in theaters on July 11, which will be the flagship of the freshly-rebooted DC Universe. Before being hired by Warner Bros. as the co-CEO of DC Studios (alongside producer Peter Safran), Gunn gained a great deal of fame writing and directing the hit "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and those films are widely beloved for their mix of jokey humor and weepy sentimentality. 

But prior to all that, Gunn made two superhero movies that seemed to mock the very idea of superheroes. Gunn's more recent fare has been bright and earnest, but his early superhero works are bitter, filthy, cynical, and even tragic. His 2011 film "Super" posited that costumed vigilantism is a form of unchecked mental illness that only leads to blood, violence, and death. And way back in 2000, Gunn penned "The Specials," a low-budget indie film about a team of superheroes on their day off. That film depicts heroes as petty, greedy, unmotivated by righteousness, and angry at the world. The Weevil (Rob Lowe) has to decide if he wants to stay with the low-rent Specials, or take a better gig with better crimefighting equipment. 

On the film's Blu-ray commentary track (covered by MovieWeb), though, Gunn revealed that "The Specials" was a nightmare to work on. There was a lot of bickering, a lot of bad blood, and at least one ruined friendship. Actress Paget Brewster played Ms. Indestructible, and Gunn says that they stopped speaking after the movie. 

The story goes that Gunn dashed off the script for "The Specials" in about two weeks, and handed it to his brother, Sean Gunn. Sean then gave it to actor Jamie Kennedy, who brought it to his manager, and the film was picked up for production. Kennedy plays a blue-skinned energy being named Amok, and Sean played Alien Orphan, a green being that can't speak well. Kennedy, Lowe, and Thomas Hayden Church were the film's big celebrities. According to the commentary, Kennedy had some mild quibbles with "The Specials." For starters, the full-face blue makeup he was required to wear didn't wash off very well, leading to some issues with his appearance in (the famously caustic) David O. Russell's "Three Kings," which was filming at the same time. 

It also appears that Gunn and Kennedy didn't get along. They fought on the set, and there was an incident wherein Kennedy got so mad that he threw a chair at Gunn while they were having a meal at Astro Burger in Hollywood. Luckily, Gunn said that he and Kennedy were able to talk out their differences, and have remained friends.

But then there was another issue. Lowe secured a high-profile acting job on "The West Wing" just as "The Specials" had completed filming, and felt that he didn't need to do any publicity for the tiny-budget indie he had just starred in. Although he was affable and helpful on set, he essentially vanished into his career the moment "The Specials" needed him to talk it up. Gunn didn't feel betrayed, but he did wish Lowe had stuck around. 

Gunn also admitted on the commentary track that Paget Brewster, who played Ms. Invincible in "The Specials," was upset with how little it did for her career. Gunn was able to move to other projects, but Brewster's immediate output after "The Specials" was released was simply more low-budget indies that didn't challenge her or pay well. Gunn admits that the foulness from "The Specials" caused the actress to "dump him as a friend." It wasn't until 2006 that Brewster recovered by landiing a plum gig in the TV series "Criminals Minds." 

Gunn has talked about "The Specials" numerous times, including in a 2011 interview with Destroy the Brain, and he has always felt a little ambivalent about the movie. He cited in that interview that "'The Specials' got me every bit of work I have," but he was displeased with the film itself; it was supposed to look grounded and realistic, but ended up looking like a cheap TV sitcom. Gunn said that he, Sean, and Thomas Hayden Church were all disappointed in the results. 

"The Specials" is an interesting curio about selling out, and one can see that, after "The Specials" was released, Gunn kind of followed the same tack. In 2002 he took a job writing the ultra-commercial "Scooby-Doo" feature film, a sell-out gig if ever there was one. He also penned the screenplay to the remake of "Dawn of the Dead," directed by Zack Snyder. That film, at least, was critically acclaimed and is somewhat beloved. It was clear, though, that the onetime indie punker Gunn became more interested in broadly appealing commercial projects. His handling of "Superman" is the proof of it.