James Gunn said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he remains somewhat confused over the conservative backlash that erupted before the release of “Superman.” Fox News and other right-wing outlets branded the movie “SuperWoke” after Gunn went viral for telling the Times of London that Superman is an “immigrant” and “the story of America.”
“I’ve heard people say it was woke, and then I’ve heard a lot of people say it’s not. I am curious as to what in the movie is considered woke,” Gunn told EW amid “Superman’s” box office success. “I think people took something I said…The guy for the London newspaper. Originally, he said that [Superman comic creators] Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were the sons of immigrants, and they wrote Superman as an immigrant story. And I said, yeah, it’s a story about an immigrant, but mostly it’s a story to me about kindness, which it is. That’s the center of the movie for me.”
“That’s the thing we can all act upon, is kindness,” the director continued. “And so what does that lead to? Well, does that lead to the way you vote? Sure. Does that lead to everything? Yeah. Does it lead to how many people are dying from road rage? Yes. All those things are affected if people just start to value kindness. I mean, people did value kindness in the past. That was an American value, was kindness, and it doesn’t necessarily seem to be that way to me anymore. So that was always the center of the movie for me, and it wasn’t about anything other than that.”
Gunn’s initial “immigrant” comment drew detractors like Fox News and Dean Cain, the former Superman actor who predicted Gunn’s quote would hurt the film’s box office. But Gunn also had his defenders like his brother, Sean Gunn, who told Variety: “Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American. People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.”
Whatever “SuperWoke” conservative backlash existed before the film’s release, it has done nothing to deter U.S. audiences from showing up in force to movie theaters. “Superman” is a bonafide box office hit domestically with a strong $235 million after two weekends of release. The film’s international haul, however, is lagging behind at $171 million. Still, “Superman” is at $406 million worldwide so far.
“We’re definitely performing better domestically than we are internationally, but internationally is also rising and having really good weekday numbers in the same way we are,” Gun said in a separate interview with Rolling Stone “So obviously the word of mouth is very positive both here and everywhere else. Which is the thing that we needed to do the most. At the same time, there are certain countries in which it’s really performing well. Brazil and the U.K.”
“Superman is not a known commodity in some places. He is not a big known superhero in some places like Batman is. That affects things,” Gunn added. “And it also affects things that we have a certain amount of anti-American sentiment around the world right now. It isn’t really helping us. So I think it’s just a matter of letting something grow. But again, for us, everything’s been a total win. Having the movie come out and be something that has been embraced by people everywhere — this is just the seed of the tree that Peter and I have been watering for the past three years. So to be able to have it start off so positively has been incredibly overwhelming.”
“Superman” is playing in theaters nationwide from Warner Bros. and DC Studios.
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