James Gunn has spent his career making movies that live comfortably in the pop culture space, and he’s perfectly fine staying there.
While plenty of filmmakers angle for prestige projects and awards recognition, Gunn is wired differently. He wants his movies to connect, to entertain, and to hit audiences on an emotional level first and foremost. Anything beyond that is secondary.
During a recent conversation on the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Gunn spoke candidly about how little the awards race factors into his creative decision-making. For him, filmmaking has never been about chasing validation from industry institutions. It’s about the experience the audience has when the lights go down.
“I don’t care about prestige. I mean, sure, would it be cool to be nominated for Best Director or something? Yeah, would I rather have that than not? But it’s not really my concern.”
That mindset explains a lot about Gunn’s filmography. From the scrappy chaos of Guardians of the Galaxy to the emotional gut punch of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, his movies aim for laughter, tears, and everything in between. They’re big, loud, and weird, but they’re also personal. Gunn doesn’t separate spectacle from sincerity. He treats them as part of the same equation.
What excites him most isn’t the red carpet conversation the next morning. It’s the mechanics of storytelling on a massive scale. He talks about blockbuster filmmaking the way someone talks about building an intricate machine, where every piece has to work in harmony to create a reaction.
“There’s an artistry to it, the creative flow. But then I also like the part of it that’s putting the big puzzle together and creating this machine that works for an audience to elicit a reaction from them, whether it’s emotional, whether it’s laughter, whether it’s screaming, whether it’s whatever it is. That’s the fun part of it.”
That philosophy carried directly into Superman, a project that could easily have been positioned as a prestige reinvention. Instead, Gunn leaned into sincerity, optimism, and emotional accessibility. He’s less interested in impressing critics than he is in making something that audiences walk away from feeling changed.
Gunn acknowledges that he occasionally has ideas that skew more independent, but his passion consistently pulls him back toward large-scale storytelling. He enjoys the challenge of making something personal within a framework that demands mass appeal. That balance is where he feels most at home, and it’s where his voice comes through the clearest.
In an industry that often frames success around trophies and critical rankings, Gunn’s approach feels refreshingly grounded. He’s chasing connection, not prestige. If people laugh, cry, or feel understood by the end of one of his movies, that’s the win. Everything else is just noise.