The “spiritual revelation” that jump-started James Gunn’s career: “I prayed to God”
If you attended the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and saw a spikey-haired young man praying on his knees to the man upstairs, you happened to catch the spiritual awakening that saved James Gunn‘s career.
At that time, Gunn was trying to make his own way in Hollywood after learning his trade for several years under the guidance of low-budget schlockmaster Lloyd Kaufman. Gunn’s work for Troma Entertainment, the company responsible for gruesomely ridiculous grindhouse fare like The Toxic Avenger, had given him a crash course in every aspect of the filmmaking process.
For example, Gunn was paid $400 per week to serve as associate director on 1996’s Tromeo and Juliet, which he co-wrote with Kaufman. A splatter-y punk rock update of Shakespeare’s classic play, it showed Gunn how to make a movie soup to nuts, on a budget that would barely cover the catering on one of his enormous blockbusters today. “I learned how to write a screenplay, how to produce a film, scout locations, direct actors, put the movie into theatres, create the poster art,” Gunn told St Louis magazine in 2011. “Everything from A to Z.”
Naturally, Kaufman’s decision to take the young horror and comic book obsessive under his wing was incredibly important to Gunn’s development as a filmmaker. Heartwarmingly, he also formed a close bond with the man who gave the world goopy, gross, and goofily offensive films like Class of Nuke ‘Em High and Terror Firmer. “I was like a son to him, and I still am,” Gunn smiled. Fittingly, in later years, he has always reserved a cameo spot for his surrogate movie dad in films like Slither, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Suicide Squad.
Still, despite Kaufman teaching Gunn everything he knew about the world of micro-budget genre moviemaking, he had higher aspirations, and by ‘99, was frustrated that he was no closer to realising them. At that point, he was co-writing Kaufman’s biography, All I Need to Know About Filmmaking, I Learned From the Toxic Avenger, which mixed reality and fiction to give a (mostly) accurate account of Kaufman’s career. Even though he was getting paid and technically working in the movie business, it wasn’t enough for him, and he came to an existential crossroads at the glitziest European film festival in the world.
“I was very frustrated because I was not getting the attention that I wanted,” Gunn recalled of that emotional crucible. “So, I got on my hands and knees, for the first time in a long time, and prayed to God, ‘Should I finish this book or not?’” Suddenly, an emphatic reply beamed into his brain: “Finish the book.” This was quickly followed by what he can only describe as a “spiritual revelation” about what he needed to do to achieve his dreams.
Gunn had been trying to get his solo directorial debut off the ground (The Specials, a comedy about a team of low-rent superheroes on their day off) during that time, and was in the process of writing two television pilots. Held back by self-doubt and a preoccupation with how others perceived him, Gunn was left frustrated. After his revelation, though, he believed with all his heart that he simply “needed to quit caring what everyone else thought about me, and finish the projects I started.”
With renewed vigour, Gunn followed his own advice and, to his delight, his prayers were soon answered. Within two short months, he moved to Los Angeles and bagged an agent, manager, and lawyer. A deal was inked to bring The Specials to life, the two TV pilot scripts were greenlit, and he was hired by Warner Bros to write its big-screen adaptation of Scooby-Doo. “It was really overnight success,” Gunn smiled, before adding the punchline, “after killing myself for over 10 years.”
