One of the scenes disliked by people who saw James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn is the scene of Lois interviewing Superman about his actions in a foreign country stopping a war but causing an international incident that Lex Luthor used to his advantage in discrediting Superman. The scene in the movie has Superman getting too emotional for critics of that scene. However, recently surfaced was David Coresweat’s audition, which includes doing the same scene with a script reader, played with a more toned down reaction. Would this have been better in context? Because the more I see of this the less I want to actually watch the movie myself.
Meanwhile, a bonus article link. The sequel has been announced talking about a 2027 release date and teaser images (by comic artists) showing Lex in a version of his power suit appearing to be allies with Superman. According to this article, Gunn is saying this is a Superman-centric ensemble piece rather than a direct sequel. Considering that’s what James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn appears to be, I’d say it actually is a sequel.
BW Media Spotlight 
A YouTube Clip Does Not A Movie Make
“Hey, I found a clip of Ironheart fighting a giant fire-breathing gorilla.”
“I saw it. Don’t know the context though.”
“Who cares? Giant fire-breathing gorilla!”
“Yeah, I’m rooting for him, too, but how was he muted from Rocket Raccoon?”
“Does it really matter?”
Yes. Yes it does. Before I go off on the latest stupidity from Marvel Studios I wanted to put this rant together not just for added context but because I might want to refer to it in the future. I’ve mentioned this as a problem with comic writers, but it seems to be worse in movies. I can’t even call it new. Jon Peters wanted to have a giant spider because he saw a documentary about how deadly a predator a spider is. When he couldn’t get Superman to fight it, he got race-swapped Jim West to find it. (The worse crime isn’t Will Smith playing Robert Conrad’s character, it’s replacing Dr. Loveless, a little person recurring villain in the show, with an exaggerated Southern racist jackass stereotype in a steampunk wheelchair. Michael Dunn should be insulted.) Michael Bay probably only took on Transformers to live his dream of cutting a bus in half. (Yes, he actually said he always wanted to film that scene.)
I’m not even going to do my own exaggeration and say something stupid like “the majority of movies out there seem to just be movie clips with a framing device”. The Epic Movie franchise is only that in parody form, because someone decided to make a parody movie franchise out of movie trailers and it’s as dumb as it sounds. That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, or that other media is doing the same thing. It’s like they’re forming a whole movie around one particular scene they want to make. This is a stupid way to make a movie.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 4, 2025 in Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary, movie writing, Short story, writing tips.
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