James Gunn again clears up confusion surrounding his Superman movie and shoots down rumors that there are VFX problems on the film and tackles questions about the budget.
“My VFX teams are killing it”
A fan questioned Gunn on Threads if it is true that there are problems with the VFX department on Superman, as Jeff Sneider said Gunn fired a “good chunk” of his VFX team and replaced them two weeks ago (Sneider also claims Gunn wants Robert Pattinson as the DCU Batman).
Gunn shot back:
“Not even a little bit. My VFX teams are killing it.”
“A couple months ago I made some changes with the post viz (temporary effects for editing purposes) team. There have been zero changes with the VFX teams.”
It’s actually my understanding from talking with insiders at Comic-Con that Gunn has members of Zack Snyder’s VFX team working on Superman. I don’t know if it’s Zack’s whole team, or certain people, or what, but from what I am told, yeah, Zack’s Snyder VFX guys are working on Superman.
VFX artist thanks Gunn
Adam Hlavac, who worked on the VFX of Marvel’s The Avengers and Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy actually thanked Gunn for how he works with the VFX artists:
Thank you for giving the artists so much time to get all the work done. I was always frustrated working on Marvel films when we’d get assets or new plates so late into the process because of scene and script changes.
Gunn responded:
I just want quality and giving the artists that (along with clear direction) is the best way to ensure that.
It’s known the “Marvel way” of doing the MCU movies has been to write the scripts on the fly as they film the flicks. This often led to overworked VFX artists and is said to be reason why Marvel fired executive producer Victoria Alonso. Gunn has made it clear that the DCU isn’t going the route of the Marvel way, and that the DC scripts have to be finished before the movies start production. DC also isn’t without fault as the VFX went unfinished on The Flash.
Great Scott! Superman budget is $363 million?!
In related news, Gunn also shot back claims that his Superman movie has a massive budget of over $350 million. I believe this first surfaced while Gunn was filming in Cleveland over the summer, but Gunn shoots it down again:
No. Good God. I wish I had somewhere even close to that!
Gunn also adds the document going around doesn’t have the legit numbers:
I don’t know if it’s faked or if it’s just some weird form an assistant in the Cleveland office filled out putting random stuff in the blanks. I sent it to our accountants and financial producers when it first came out a year ago and no one knew what it was. I can just tell you it wasn’t anyone on our team!
Superman opens in theaters and in IMAX on July 11, 2025. The film stars David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicholas Hoult.
