'Suicide Squad' director James Gunn thinks superhero movies are 'really dumb' and 'mostly boring' right now

• James Gunn told The Irish Times that a lot of recent superhero movies are "mostly boring" to him.
• The director of several superhero movies said creators need to bring in "other elements."
• He thinks the superhero genre may lose popularity, as Westerns did, if they don't change things up.

James Gunn, the director of the upcoming "The Suicide Squad" movie, recently told The Irish Times that superhero films need to change or they risk losing their appeal.

Gunn, who's helmed several Marvel films in addition to this latest DC movie, compared the current state of box-office hit comic-book adaptations to other genres that were once wildly popular and eventually fell out of fashion, such as Westerns and war movies.

"I don't know, I think you don't have to be a genius to put two and two together and see that there's a cycle to those sorts of films, you know and that the only hope for the future of the comic book and superhero films is to change them up," the director told the Irish Times.

He added: "They're really dumb. And they're mostly boring for me right now."

Gunn clarified that not all superhero films were boring to him and that he "loved them at the beginning," praising the visual effects of the early Superman movies he saw as a child and the first "Iron Man" film, which kickstarted the MCU.

"But if the movies don't change, it's gonna get really, really boring," Gunn said.

Gunn is no stranger to changing up the formula of the superhero genre. The first two "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies, directed by Gunn, brought comedy and bright colors to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the success of that franchise helped transform the Marvel formula. Even on the DC side, Gunn has teased a change to that formula as well, summing up "The Suicide Squad" to Entertainment Weekly as a "war caper movie with s---ty supervillains."

"The Suicide Squad" director also told the Irish Times that he was inspired by the creators of "Watchmen," the artist Dave Gibbons and the writer Alan Moore, praising their imperfect superhero depictions.

"The costumes didn't fit the superheroes perfectly, and they had a little bit of a paunch," Gunn said. "They weren't all perfect bodies; they weren't all beautiful. When they fought, they were kind of getting in the stupid Bartleby thing of getting into bar fights.

He continued: "There are people trying to do some different things with superheroes. So it's not 100% a rule that everybody isn't, but a lot of superhero films are boring. And so for me, I think it's just about bringing in other elements."

To Gunn's point, superhero series such as HBO's "Watchmen" and Amazon Prime's "The Boys" have been praised by critics for bringing political elements into their stories about superheroes.