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Director James Gunn says the warped version of Superman seen in the trailer for his highly anticipated film “Superman” represents America.
During a recent Q&A session at the premiere of the trailer, the director acknowledged the political implications present in the film, saying that the theme of a battered and bloody America runs through it.
“We have a beaten Superman at the beginning. It’s our country,” Gunn said at the event.
“Superman” director James Gunn told reporters at a recent Q&A that the battered Superman featured in the film’s first trailer represents America. (Getty Images)
Trailer debuted online Thursday, sparking a whole new cinematic universe for the iconic DC Comics superhero. Superman is played this time by actor David Corenswet, alongside Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane.
In addition to reintroducing audiences to the classic Superman characters, the roughly two-minute trailer showed the titular character in dire straits, lying bloodied and bruised in the Arctic wasteland.
The opening shots of the trailer show the gruff superhero using his remaining strength to whistle to his dog, Krypto, to save him.
Gunn said the shocking images of the broken hero are a reference to an America that still stands for goodness despite what he called its current bloody and battered state.
“I believe in the goodness of human beings and I believe that most people in this country, despite their ideological beliefs, their politics, do their best to survive and be good people — despite how it seems to the other side,” he said.
But the beleaguered state of Gunn’s Superman represents America when it is corrupted by “darker voices,” he said.
“This film is about that. It’s about the basic kindness of human beings and how it can be seen as uncool and under siege [by] some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices.”
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The trailer’s opening shots show a gruff Superman using his remaining strength to whistle to his super-powered dog, Krypto, to rescue him. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
Elsewhere during the Q&A, Gunn reiterated the idea that the film is about human kindness overcoming those “darker” influences.
He said: “It’s about the basic kindness of human beings. It’s a noble premise and it seems designed to appeal across the political spectrum. It’s a moral call to embrace decency and optimism.”
Gunn, who has shied away from political specifics, has long been a critic of President-elect Donald Trump, calling him in a 2017 post “an incompetent president who is forging an all-out Hitler-Putin-style assault on facts and journalism.”
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During the Superman event, Gunn also mentioned that he wanted his reboot to distance itself from some of the themes of past iterations of the franchise.
“Yet, given how closely contemporary superhero stories are scrutinized as allegories for our polarized age, there is an undercurrent of concern,” he said. “After all, previous DC installments have been criticized for flirting with darker political overtones and ‘fascist power fantasies’.”
“We all felt like we were doing something good … not a fascist power fantasy,” he added elsewhere.
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