James Gunn's ‘Superman' Described as “Terrible" After Test Screening

What exactly is going on with James Gunn’s “Superman”? There have been whispers that a recent cut screened internally over at Warner Bros was not up to the standards of the studio brass. A few weeks later, another cut was screened, and word was only slightly better.

Now you have The Hot Mic’s Jeff Sneider, who just a few days ago tackled the improved cut of the film, but now he’s hearing, from his “best source,” that “Superman” is actually pretty “terrible.”

What’s even more alarming is that James Gunn has been very adamant in the past about refusing to do conduct reshoots on his films. A few months ago, when rumors started circulating of additional photography on “Superman,” Gunn shot down those rumors:

“Heck no. Once you’re done shooting you’ve only just begun!” Gunn wrote in a message on Threads. “Still lots of editing, VFX, sound, and scoring to be done! I’ve done a total of one day of reshoots on my past two films combined.”

Interestingly, it was during a press event, which took place last Friday, that Gunn walked back his previous comments about reshoots, and confirmed that additional photography will indeed be occurring on “Superman” in Los Angeles.

"We've done real screenings. Definitely learning stuff all the time, definitely editing and making little changes. You know, we might shoot a couple little, tiny things," the filmmaker admitted. "All my additional photography is so hard, because it's like, I used to be kind of against it. Because, you know, you don’t want to have to shoot again. It's a pain in the ass."

"I really [like] being able to say, 'You know what? I wish I had a shot that fist hitting that...' And so I tend to go back and pick that kind of stuff up. So it wouldn't be anything major, but those kinds of things, yeah, I'll cover you a couple more things like that," Gunn concluded. 

Back in December, you had a THR piece confirming a rough cut of “Superman” had occurred on the Warner lot, but the trade added in a very cryptic tackling of the internal response. Here’s the excerpt:

We've heard from multiple sources about one screening in particular, on the lot and with [Gunn’s] close-knit crew of people he trusts. We're keeping the buzz about the movie itself in our own Fortress of Solitude, but we can tell you that the movie will be doing a few days of additional shooting in Los Angeles in the near term.

When I first read this, it automatically signaled to me that something odd was happening behind the scenes with “Superman.” It wasn’t the “additional shooting” mention, which Gunn had denied at the time, but rather the fact that THR claimed having spoken to multiple folks who had seen the film, but refused to divulge anything about its quality. Why is that? Why not just briefly say that word was good on the film?

The whispers continued a few weeks later when a report indicated that “Superman,” or at least the cut shown on the Warner lot, was “kind of a mess.” It went on to say that Warner was starting to get “nervous” about the film.

They should be “nervous.” If Gunn’s “Superman” fails then the whole DCU he’s trying to create might crumble along with it. Warner Bros. has invested a lot of money on this film, rumored to be approaching the $300M mark, and then they have Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl” coming out next year.

Gunn still has time to refine “Superman” — it’s only supposed to be theatrically released on July 11.