James Gunn: director, bully, cinephile and parody

The path to phenomenal success and recognition always begins with the first step. If an individual has a desire to achieve a goal, then no obstacles can prevent him. A striking example confirming this statement is the career rise of the director with permanent disheveled hair - James Gunn.

The American screenwriter, director of two parts of an ideal modern blockbuster began his career as a cartoonist. Nowadays, few will remember that scripts for the free adaptation of the classic comedy “Tromeo and Juliet” (1996), the mystical comedy films “Scooby-Doo” (2002) and “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters free ”.

Early work

James Gunn was born in the last month of the summer of 1966 in the town of St. Louis, Missouri, although he later moved to Manchester with his family. As a child, Gann did not have to be bored, because in addition to him, four fellow brothers and a sister who did not lag behind the boys grew up in the family. In his youth, the future director was an ardent admirer of low-budget horror, read out thematic magazines, regularly attended screenings of genre films, including the iconic "Dawn of the Dead". Even at the age of twelve, the boy tried to create a zombie horror on an 8-mm camera, using his brothers as actors.

James received his education at the University of St. Louis, who graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. He tried to comprehend the wisdom of cinema at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), but soon dropped out. He received his master's degree in art much later, at Columbia University.

Debut horror

Director James Gunn, now known as the creator of Guardians of the Galaxy, began his ascent to fame with hard work at the Troma thrash studio. To surpass Lloyd Kaufman, he tirelessly looked for an opportunity to remove the author’s project, pure water mainstream horror, which became the movie "Slug". Gann, who has remained a fan of such film productions as Drop, The Night of Reptiles since his hectic youth, has saturated his brainchild with canonical genre clichés and elements like slug-like parasites introduced to the Earth after a meteorite, mutating infected locals, etc.

Critics often compared the director’s debut work and the cult thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But the director managed to turn a familiar story into a rollicking black comedy. "Slug" is not original, like other James Gann films, but it contains a lot of witty quotes and a great cast (N. Fillion, M. Rooker and E. Banks). Add to that, decent effects for a tape with a budget of fifteen million dollars and a high horror rating of IMDb: 6.50.

In a good way - a bully

Despite the fact that “Slug” at the box office showed itself poorly, James Gunn was not left without work. With renewed vigor, the director set about creating the criminal comedy Super, which is a caustic parody of comics and newfangled films about superheroes. In the film, which is close in spirit to the film “Kick-Ass”, the author literally disassembled the image of a respectable citizen who decided to put on an absurd suit and fight evil. Also, the director’s track record contains the YouTube series “Porn for the Whole Family”.

On the whole, James was not the most obvious candidate for the post of director of the film, defined as a potential outsider of the Marvel movie universe. But, being approved as the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy project, he worked as if he had realized his childhood dream. In his interpretation, “The Guardians” turned out to be a dashing cosmoopera, an adult version of the Disney “Treasure Planet”, a vigorous mixture of “Indiana Jones” and “Star Wars”, without unnecessary pathos and romantic gasps.

So, the hooligan James Gann managed to avoid the mistakes of the “Green Lantern” and created the most lively and lively film for the duet Marvel and Disney.

To be continued

In 2017, the director suddenly bursting into the mainstream confirms that he came seriously and for a long time. He occupies the director's chair of the film “Guardians of the Galaxy. Part 2". And the sequel, having rolled out, proves that the success of the original tape was not to blame for the invited superstars and the effect of surprise, but only for James Gunn.

But in 2018, an unpleasant incident occurs, as a result of which the director of the franchise, who had the imprudence to make immoral jokes on Twitter, was dismissed from his post. To date, the company’s management does not intend to return it to work on the third part of the “Guardians”.

Beyond the film industry

Photos of James Gunn are decorated not only with posters of famous blockbusters, but also with bookends of novels. In 2000, an opus with the innocuous name “Toy Collector” came out from under his pen, the plot of which can rightly be the basis of a shocking horror. Also, in his joint work with Lloyd Kaufman, the film "Infinite Terror" was shot.

James Gunn was married to actress Jenna Fisher, but after seven happy years of married life, they decided to remain friends and began the divorce proceedings. Since then, Gann only cares about his pet - a dog named Dr. Wesley von Spears, sometimes distracted by brief hobbies, either violinist Mia Matsumiya or model Melissa Stetten.