James Gunn and Peter Safran are the new co-heads of DC Studios and they have already released a slate of upcoming films.
Let’s find out some trivia and facts about his life and career.
- His full name is James Francis Gunn Jr.
- He was born in August 5, 1966
- He is an American filmmaker and executive
- He began his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s
- Starting at Troma Entertainment with Tromeo and Juliet (1997)
- He then began working as a director
- Starting with the horror-comedy film Slither (2006)
- He moved to the superhero genre with Super (2010), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), The Suicide Squad (2021), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
- In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Gunn and Peter Safran to become co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios
- He also wrote and directed the web series James Gunn’s PG Porn (2008–2009), the HBO Max original series Peacemaker (2022–present), and the Disney+ original special The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)
- Other projects he is known for is writing for the 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), writing the live-action adaptation of Scooby Doo (2002), and its sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), writing and producing the horror-action film The Belko Experiment (2016), producing the superhero-horror film Brightburn (2019) and the 2012 hack-and-slash video game Lollipop Chainsaw
- He also contributed to comedy-anthology film Movie 43 (2013)
- Directing the segment “Beezel”
- James was born on August 5, 1966 in St. Louis, Missouri, to parents James F. Gunn, an attorney, and Leota “Lee” (Hynek)
- He was raised between St. Louis and Manchester, Missouri
- He has five siblings — actor Sean, actor and political writer Matt, screenwriter Brian, Patrick, and Beth
- His father was from an Irish immigrant family
- Gunn has stated that his family’s surname was originally the Irish name MacGilgunn and that it means “sons to the servants of the god of the dead”
- It actually means “son of the brown youth”
- Gunn was raised Catholic, despite being of partial Jewish descent
- Growing up, Gunn was influenced by low-budget films such as Night of the Living Dead and Friday the 13th
- He read magazines like Fangoria and attended genre movie screenings, including the original Dawn of the Dead at the Tivoli Theatre in St. Louis
- At the age of 12, he began making 8 mm zombie films with his brothers in the woods near their home
- Gunn and his brothers all attended the Jesuit St. Louis University High School, where he graduated in 1984
- He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Louis University
- While at Saint Louis University, Gunn created political cartoons for the school’s student weekly, The University News
- Gunn said that, at an unspecified time in his college education, “I went to two years undergraduate film school at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. But I was pretty screwed up at the time, and had to leave. Years later I went to graduate school at the Columbia University School of Fine Arts but I studied prose writing, not film writing”
- He earned a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 1995
- Gunn married actress Jenna Fischer on October 7, 2000
- After seven years of marriage, Gunn and Fischer announced their separation in a joint statement on September 5, 2007
- They were divorced in 2008
- The two remained friends. In 2010, Fischer persuaded Gunn to cast Rainn Wilson, her co-star on The Office, in Gunn’s film Super
- Gunn has been in a relationship with actress Jennifer Holland since 2015
- In February 2022, Holland and Gunn became engaged
- They were married at the end of September 2022
- Gunn was raised in a Roman Catholic family and has mentioned how prayer continues to play an important role in his life
- He has also said that he is “in some ways, anti-religion”
- While living in St. Louis, Gunn founded a band, The Icons, in 1989, serving as lead vocalist
- The group released the album Mom, We Like It Here on Earth in 1994, and its songs “Sunday” and “Walking Naked” were featured in the film Tromeo and Juliet
- The Icons disbanded in the mid-1990s
- Gunn has continued to work in music, composing songs for Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and Movie 43
- Gunn began his career in filmmaking with Troma Entertainment in 1995, for which he wrote the independent film Tromeo and Juliet
- Working alongside his mentor Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma, Gunn learned how to write screenplays, produce films, scout locations, direct actors, distribute films, and create his own poster art
- Gunn and Peter Safran had advised David Zaslav, the CEO of the newly-created Warner Bros. Discovery, during his search for a new head of DC Films
- The duo impressed Zaslav who decided to appoint them as the co-chairpersons and CEOs of DC Films, rebranded as “DC Studios”
- They have control over films, animation and television projects based on characters from DC Comics
- Gunn oversees the creative aspects and will be exclusive to Warner Bros. Discovery during his tenure, except for his prior commitments to Disney
- The two assumed their positions on November 1, 2022
- In December 2022, Gunn announced that he was writing a film about a young Superman during his early years in Metropolis
- In January 2023, the film’s title was revealed as Superman: Legacy slated for release in July 2025
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