James Gunn revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone that he refused to listen to “Superman” test screening audiences who opposed the moment when David Corenswet’s Man of Steel decides to save a squirrel as Metropolis is being attacked by a rampaging Kaiju monster. It’s a quick and utterly harmless beat in the film, but one that is key to getting across Superman’s empathy and kindness.
“It was probably the second- or third-most hotly debated moment in the movie,” Gunn said. “Because we showed it to test audiences and some people did not like the squirrel. They’re like, ‘Why the fuck is he saving a squirrel? Why is he taking time out, saving a squirrel?’ There was a cut where I cut it out and I’m like, ‘I really miss the squirrel. He’s gotta save the squirrel.’ In addition, there were also some geographic problems with where he ended up if I didn’t have him fly over with the squirrel. So I put the squirrel back in despite the protestations of some of my people on my crew.”
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In a separate interview with The New York Times, Gunn said: “A 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?”
Another test screening note Gunn received is one he’s been dealing with his entire career: The pacing is just too fast.
“When you test movies, almost always, especially in the early test screenings, one of the main questions they ask is, ‘Is it too slow? Is it too fast? Is it just right?’ And my movies have always had an overabundance of ‘too fast’ compared to ‘too slow,’” Gunn said. “Because I’m not indulgent. I just don’t give a shit about my little precious moments that are so important to me in making a movie. I want to create something that’s as streamlined as possible, and if that means I go too fast, sometimes I do. And so it really is about pulling back.”
Test screenings have become a routine process for studio movies, although they don’t always align with public tastes. Marvel boss Kevin Feige infamously hyped “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” by saying Jonathan Majors’ Kang was “the highest-testing villain we’ve ever had in any of our friends and families [screenings].” But that didn’t bring people to the theaters, as “Quantumania” flopped with $476 million worldwide to become one of Marvel’s lowest grossers.
“Superman” is playing in theaters nationwide from Warner Bros. and DC Studios.
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