James Gunn Has The Perfect Response To Zack Snyder Fans Trying To 'Hurt' Superman
James Gunn's "Superman" is flying at us faster than a speeding bullet, with only a few weeks to go before the film hits theaters. This new take on "Superman" promises to bring a somewhat optimistic perspective to one of comics' most famous superheroes, standing in stark contrast to Zack Snyder's vision of the "Man of Steel." And even if Gunn and Snyder are, by all reports, friends (even trading notes on how best to bring Superman to life on screen), that hasn't stopped a certain corner of the internet from drawing up its plans for revenge.
Not content with having successfully convincing Warner Bros to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, one viral post on r/Snydercut is drumming up the war plans for how to #ReleaseTheSnyderverse, referring to a plethora of films that would have followed the "Justice League," both real and imagined. These fans are unhappy that Gunn has scrapped the DC Extended Universe and moved on without their beloved Henry Cavill in the role of Superman, and they've devised a plan to "fight for our Snyderverse on the imposter Superman release day" with a three-step plan for how to put the squeeze on "Superman" (kryptonite not required), not even bothering to spell Gunn's last name correctly:
1. Post spoilers everywhere. People are less likely to see or enjoy the movie if it's already spoiled
2. Leave bad rating on review sites. We know for sure gunbots will post fake positive reviews so we must let people know the truth and balance the bias out with realistic scores.
3. Reserve tickets online but don't complete the purchase. By selecting and reserving tickets, it gets taken out of the pool for a period of time which means this has a chance of stopping gunbots from buying tickets
Gun fired the first shot and killed the Snyderverse and here is our chance to take the fight back to him.
No one has a more perfect response to the whole situation than James Gunn himself.
James Gunn thinks they'll survive 'the eight people that listen to that guy'
After a fan shared the details of this smear campaign to Gunn on Threads, he succinctly replied:
"lol I think we'll survive. I'm not sure the eight people that listen to that guy (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's a guy) are going to impact the course of events."
Gunn elaborated in an interview with Rolling Stone, recounting a lesson he imparted on one of his "Superman" lead actors who became too obsessed with reading everything online about the film. He would read "every f****** Reddit thread," Gunn said, so he reminded them that it's actually good that not everyone is rooting for them:
"I said 'First of all, you realize that the trailer came out and [reaction] was 97, 98 percent positive. These people help us, because you don't want everything to seem 100 percent positive." It's all right to have an opposing force every once in a while. Some of the things get ridiculous — I just know that every time something comes out, it doesn't matter how positively received, there's gonna be something that is of great controversy."
Gunn went on to explain that controversy is inevitable with such a high profile character like Superman because there are some people out there who "make their livings by hating us. That's how they make all their money."
"There's going to be something that people are upset about, and it's OK ... But you don't have to watch their videos where they're talking about how you're awful. You can't be reading it all the time. It'll f****** murder you. It's a terrible thing to do to your soul."
Amen to that. The pressure's on when "Superman" hits theaters on July 11, 2025.