Next month, director James Gunn will debut his new Superman movie, starring David Corenswet as the Man of Steel. Gunn isn't just the guy behind this new film, but a whole DC Cinematic Universe that will include movies about Supergirl, Batman, Wonder Woman, Clayface and more. The last attempt at building out such a movie universe failed, but Gunn is back to give it another try and eat Marvel's lunch.
Although if you ask him, Gunn will say that he's not modeling this new cinematic universe after the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is by far the most successful of all the cinematic universes in the universe. “Game of Thrones, not just the show but the books, is what we’re using as a reference for the DCU," he told Omelete. "The DCU is not the MCU. The MCU is kind of our world. It has New York, it has this city or that city, with superheroes in the middle. The DCU is a different universe. Slightly different, slightly transformed.”
That is a little more like Game of Thrones, which takes place in the fictional world of Westeros rather than, say, in real-life medieval England but with more dragons. But Gunn also intends to imitate the structure of Game of Thrones, with multiple story threads running at the same time which will eventually collide in crossover events, or crises. "I also draw a lot of inspiration from Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and other stories that build different narratives within the same continuity. It’s not about telling just one story,” he said.
It's true that Game of Thrones followed different characters on different paths for years before they crossed, e.g. Jon Snow was defending the Wall while Tyrion Lannister was on trial in King's Landing while Daenerys Targaryen was ruling the city of Meereen in faraway Slaver's Bay; these characters wouldn't actually meet until seasons later, and when they did, it felt like a big deal because we'd been following them individually for so long. Marvel, on the other hand, would generally establish a character in a movie or two before linking them into some crossover film, like the way we had Thor and Captain America movies before they joined forces in The Avengers.
Although honestly, I'm not sure those two approaches are that different; it's just that one works better for TV and one for film. Unless we're going to spend several movies with Superman before he gets featured in some kind of Justice League film, it's hard to imagine Gunn deviating from the Marvel model overmuch. I also take issue with the idea that Game of Thrones wasn't "telling just one story." Sure, the characters dealt with individual dramas, but ultimately they were all part of one big story; it just took a while for them all to link up.
Personally, I suspect that Gunn is referencing Game of Thrones and Star Wars because Marvel is his biggest, most obvious competitor and he doesn't want to admit to taking inspiration from them. But I'm open-minded. We'll have a better idea of Gunn's approach when Superman lands in theaters on July 8.
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h/t IGN