Gunn blames himself for not looking ‘closely’ at this commercial
Warner Bros
Nothing about making a movie is easy, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gunn talks about the kind of trial-and-error that is necessary when bringing a superhero to life in a new way. He compares the process to what he learned making “Guardians of the Galaxy” and how he learned so much about how to shoot Superman flying by actually going out and filming it.
That anecdote prompts EW to ask about the commercial shot in particular, asking if the fact it became a controversial shot is “telling” that he has to put in the work to “figure out how to pull off these mechanics of getting David to fly authentically?” Gunn downplays the importance of the discourse around this shot, saying:
“No, I don’t think it was so much. It was a TV commercial and it wasn’t a finished visual effects shot. So the part of him flying, it was a photograph of his face and him flying. It was a photograph of a drone flying in front of an actual background. So all the pieces were real, but it was incorporated in kind of a funky way. I didn’t love the shot, so it’s not even the shot that’s in the movie. Sometimes I’m pretty strict about when I’m going through a trailer and looking at each of the shots, but sometimes the commercials, I forget to look at this closely. So that one kind of got by me.”
Using an unfinished VFX shot in a 30 second commercial wouldn’t normally cause such a stir, and perhaps now that we have confirmation the shot won’t even be in the final picture, we can put this whole supposed “controversy” to bed. But something tells me the Lex Luthors lurking on the internet will just go searching for some other supposed kryptonite with which to take down “Superman.”
Gunn, for his part, has encouraged his collaborators and fans to not take heed of the haters who “make their livings by hating us,” and that reading “every f****** Reddit thread” would be a “terrible thing to do to your soul.” So it is good to hear that this shot isn’t removed because of the backlash, but because Gunn is paying close attention to make sure every single frame of “Superman” soars as high as possible.
See for yourself when “Superman” hits theaters on July 11, 2025.
