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James Gunn has talked about the differences between directing with DC and Marvel.
When asked by The New York Times if he sees big variations between how the two studios build their franchises, the Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad director said: "Yes, but not as many as people probably think. There's no doubt Kevin Feige is way more involved with editing than people are at Warner Bros. He gives more notes. You don't have to take them and I don't always take them... The truth is, as Marvel goes on and Kevin Feige starts to amass ownership of half of all film in general, he's more spread out."
The director also talked about DC's less uniform approach to the DCEU, commenting "that is the one of the ways in which DC can distinguish itself from Marvel" and explaining his work in the MCU is different to other Marvel filmmakers', "but not as different as Shazam! and Suicide Squad." He added: "I think the current batch of folks over at Warner Bros. are really interested in building out a world and creating something that's unique to the filmmakers. We're in a strange time, so anything can happen."
Gunn then discussed the DCEU's multiverse-based approach to the movies: "I do find, because of the ability to do different stuff in the DC multiverse, it's fun. They're starting to really resemble their comic books. The Marvel Universe has always been a little more cohesive, and DC has always had more great single runs. They had The Dark Knight Returns. They had Watchmen. They had The Killing Joke. They had Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. The fact that they did Joker, which is a totally different type of movie, that to me is cool. I'm very excited about Matt's movie [The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves]. They're getting some really good filmmakers involved. They're always going to be hit or miss – I just don't want them to get boring."
The director recently told our sister publication SFX magazine that superhero movies are "mostly boring to me right now," which helped inspire the genre-blend of a war movie and a superhero flick in The Suicide Squad.
The film is due out for release in the US in theaters and HBO Max this August 5, and slightly earlier in UK cinemas on July 30. Until then, check out how to watch DC movies in order to get up to speed on the MCU.
