James Gunn

James Francis Gunn Jr. (born August 5, 1966) is an American filmmaker and studio executive.

James Francis Gunn Jr. was born on August 5, 1966 in St. Louis, Missouri, to parents James F. Gunn, an attorney, and Leota "Lee" (Hynek).

He was raised Catholic in the St Louis suburb municipality of Manchester, Missouri.

He has five siblings — actor Sean, actor and political writer Matt, screenwriter Brian, Patrick, and Beth.

Gunn is of Irish and Jewish descent his father coming from an Irish immigrant family.

Gunn has stated that his family's surname was originally the Irish name MacGilgunn and that it means "sons to the servants of the god of the dead"; it actually means "son of the brown youth."

Gunn and his brothers all attended the Jesuit St. Louis University High School, where he graduated in 1984.

He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts from Saint Louis University.

While at Saint Louis University, Gunn created political cartoons for the school's student weekly, The University News.

Gunn said that, at an unspecified time in his college education, "I went to two years undergraduate film school at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. But I was pretty screwed up at the time, and had to leave. Years later I went to graduate school at the Columbia University School of Fine Arts but I studied prose writing, not film writing."

While living in St. Louis, Gunn founded a band, The Icons, in 1989, serving as lead vocalist.

He began his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s, starting at Troma Entertainment with Tromeo and Juliet (1997).

The Icons disbanded in the mid-1990s.

Gunn has continued to work in music, composing songs for Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and Movie 43.

The group released the album Mom, We Like It Here on Earth in 1994, and its songs "Sunday" and "Walking Naked" were featured in the film Tromeo and Juliet.

He earned a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in 1995.

Gunn began his career in filmmaking with Troma Entertainment in 1995, for which he co-wrote the independent film Tromeo and Juliet.

Working alongside his mentor Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma, Gunn learned how to write screenplays, produce films, scout locations, direct actors, distribute films, and create his own poster art.

After contributing to several other Troma films, Gunn in 2000 wrote, produced and performed in the superhero comedy The Specials, directed by Craig Mazin and featuring Rob Lowe, Thomas Haden Church, Paget Brewster, Judy Greer and Jamie Kennedy.

Gunn's first major Hollywood screenplay was Scooby-Doo in 2002.

Other projects he is known for is writing for the 2004 remake of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), writing the live-action adaptation of Scooby Doo (2002), and its sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), writing and producing the horror-action film The Belko Experiment (2016), producing the superhero-horror film Brightburn (2019), and contributing to comedy-anthology film Movie 43 (2013) (directing the segment "Beezel") and the 2012 hack-and-slash video game Lollipop Chainsaw.

In 2004, he wrote the screenplays for the remake of Dawn of the Dead and the sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

With these films, Gunn became the first screenwriter to have two films top the box office in consecutive weeks.

That same year, he executive produced and starred in the mockumentary LolliLove, directed by and starring his then-wife Jenna Fischer.

He then began working as a director, starting with the horror-comedy film Slither (2006), and moving to the superhero genre with Super (2010), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), The Suicide Squad (2021), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).

In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery hired Gunn and Peter Safran to become co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios.

Under DC Studios, Gunn will co-produce and executive produce every film and television series under the upcoming DC Universe (DCU) media franchise alongside Safran, which will act as a soft-reboot of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).

He will also continue to write and direct various projects set in the DCU, including the upcoming film Superman (2025).

His film directorial debut was the 2006 horror-comedy Slither, which was included on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 50 Best Ever Reviewed Horror Movies.

Gunn's next projects included the comedy short film "Humanzee!"

He also wrote and directed the web series James Gunn's PG Porn (2008–2009), the HBO Max original series Peacemaker (2022–present) and Creature Commandos (2024), and the Disney+ original special The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022).

which was originally intended exclusively for the Xbox Live's Horror Meets Comedy series of short comedy films by horror directors, it was replaced with "Sparky and Mikaela" which debuted on Xbox Live on December 31, 2008.

In 2008, Gunn was a judge on the VH1 reality television show Scream Queens, where 10 unknown actresses compete for a role in the film Saw VI.

In an April 2009 interview on The Jace Hall Show, Gunn described "Sparky and Mikaela" as being "about a human [and] racoon crime fighting team and they fight crime in both the forest world, among the furry animals, and in the human world".

Gunn also has a short-form web series for Spike.com titled James Gunn's PG Porn.

In 2009, Gunn announced he was going to write and direct Pets, a comedy about a man who is abducted by aliens who want to turn him into a household pet, with Ben Stiller, Stuart Cornfeld and Jeremy Kramer producing.

However, by March 2009, Gunn announced, "Pets unfortunately, is done. I'm gone. I left the project for various reasons. I hope it sees the light of day somehow, but it won't be with me attached as director."

Growing up, Gunn was influenced by low-budget films such as Night of the Living Dead and Friday the 13th.

He read magazines like Fangoria and attended genre movie screenings, including the original Dawn of the Dead at the Tivoli Theatre in St. Louis.

At the age of 12, he began making 8 mm zombie films with his brothers in the woods near their home.