{"id":14652,"date":"2025-07-24T12:05:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T12:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14652"},"modified":"2025-07-24T12:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T12:05:18","slug":"i-was-missing-the-squirrel-james-gunn-on-the-superman-moment-he-fought-to-keep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14652","title":{"rendered":"I was missing the squirrel: James Gunn on the \u2018Superman\u2019 moment he fought to keep"},"content":{"rendered":"
There is a key moment in James Gunn\u2019s Superman where the superhero saves a small squirrel while it is being attacked by a rampaging Kaiju monster in Metropolis – a moment that the first screening test audience hated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Gunn revealed that he fought to put the scene back on because according to him, it showed the empathetic and kind side of the Man of Steel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably the second or third most hotly debated moment in the movie.\u201d Gunn said. \u201cWe showed it to test audiences and some people did not like the squirrel. They asked, \u2018Why is he saving a squirrel? Why is he taking time out, saving a squirrel?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunn shared, \u201cThere was a cut where I cut it out and I\u2019m like, \u2018I really miss the squirrel. He\u2019s got to save the squirrel.\u2019 In addition, there were also some geographic problems with where he ended up if I didn\u2019t have him fly over with the squirrel. So I put the squirrel back in despite the protests of some people on my crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously in an interview with the New York Times, Gunn had said, \u201cA lot of people were anti-squirrel. They thought it was too much. And I think it really comes down to, do you like squirrels or not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Test screen audiences have also regularly complained that the pacing in Gunn\u2019s films is \u201ctoo fast\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you test movies, especially in the early test screenings, one of the main questions they ask is, \u2018Is it too slow? Is it too fast? Is it just right?\u2019 And my movies have always had an overabundance of \u2018too fast\u2019 compared to \u2018too slow’,\u201d revealed the director.<\/p>\n

Defending his choices, Gunn explained, \u201cI\u2019m not indulgent. I just don\u2019t care about my little precious moments that are so important to me in making a movie. I want to create something that\u2019s as streamlined as possible, and if that means I go too fast, sometimes I do. And so it really is about pulling back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Test screenings have become a regular process for studio films. However, they do not always reflect public taste. For example, Marvel director Kevin Feige once hyped up Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania by commenting, \u201cJonathan Majors, playing the villain Kang, was the highest-testing villain we\u2019ve ever had in any of our \u2018friends and families\u2019 [screenings].\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite this, the theatre audience remained unimpressed. The film flopped at the box office with $476 million worldwide and became one of Marvel\u2019s lowest grossers.<\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a key moment in James Gunn\u2019s Superman where the superhero saves a small squirrel while it is being attacked by a rampaging Kaiju monster in Metropolis – a moment that the first screening test audience hated.\u00a0 In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Gunn revealed that he fought to put the scene back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}