James Gunn’s favourite comic book movies that aren’t about superheroes: “Works on every level”
Few directors are more associated with comic book movies than James Gunn. He has helmed seven feature films, and only one had nothing to do with comics. Indeed, before he jumped into the A-list with Marvel’s excellent Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and his current job as head honcho of DC Studios, Gunn followed up his debut Slither – a Troma-esque comedy horror – with Super, a pitch black comedy about an ultraviolent superhero in the quote-unquote ‘real world’.
Gunn has always been honest about his love of comic books, especially the more obscure characters from the Marvel and DC universes. He grew up reading the adventures of these misbegotten weirdos, and when he came of age, somehow managed to turn deep-cut heroes and villains into modern cinema icons. For instance, before he immortalised them on-screen, even hardcore comic nerds would have struggled to name the likes of Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, Peacemaker, or Metamorpho.
Interestingly, though, when asked to name his favourite comic book movies, Gunn highlighted something that seems to have escaped the notice of much of the Western world. Despite being the biggest superhero fan working in Hollywood, he told GQ that two of his top five films based on comics don’t involve superheroes at all. This spoke to the fact that comics are a medium, not a genre.
Even though most Americans think ‘comics = superheroes’, the medium has long delivered stories of all genres in the US, Europe, and Asia. In fact, in these other countries, the medium is taken more seriously as a form of artistic expression, with comics and graphic novels existing happily alongside other forms of literature. Many of these comics have been adapted into films over the years, and countless audiences have likely loved movies they had no idea began life in four-colour form.
For instance, did you know the 2001 indie dramedy Ghost World was based on a slice-of-life comic by Daniel Clowes? Or that Tom Hanks’ Depression-era gangster film Road to Perdition came from a pulpy graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner? How about Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi masterpiece Snowpiercer being based on a seminal French series? Other movies, such as Johnny Depp’s From Hell and the Kingsman series, as well as TV series like The Eternaut, Resident Alien, and Preacher, all have their origins in the comic book form as well.
So, when Gunn pondered his five favourites, he made sure to include two that are a world away from the typical excesses of the superhero film. Firstly, he named Oldboy, the classic Park Chan-wook action thriller that stunned audiences with its combination of beauty and brutality, and invented the modern action obsession of bloody fights in crowded hallways. That South Korean film was based on a Japanese manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, and Gunn loved it.
“It reinvented action, and it really ushered in the new era of Korean cinema, which has continued to this day,” Gunn stated emphatically. “They still probably make the best action movies in the world. But as a movie, it’s just incredibly cinematic, incredibly colourful, really kind of gross, but also beautiful. And shocking at the end. It works on every level.”
For his second pick, Gunn opted for an Oscar-nominated David Cronenberg thriller: 2005’s A History of Violence. The movie, which starred Viggo Mortensen as a small-town diner owner forced to reckon with his former life as a deadly Mob hitman, is one of Cronenberg’s best movies, and it is somehow haunting, off-kilter, bone-crunchingly violent, and tender at the same time. Amusingly, Gunn didn’t even know it was based on a 1997 graphic novel by Judge Dredd scribe John Wagner and artist Vince Locke until after he saw the film, proving that some comics even manage to escape his notice.
“I didn’t know it was based on a novel, and I definitely didn’t know it was based on comic books,” Gunn said with barely restrained surprise. “I just saw it as a movie itself, so it didn’t have to live up to anything, didn’t have to overcome anything. It was just an amazing movie in and of itself.”
