Piers Morgan Uncensored - “It's a DISASTER!” James Gunn Turns Superman Woke! | With Nerdrotic & Dean Cain

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

The new Superman movie has been the subject of intense debate and anticipation, which began more than a year before its release. Some fans were energized by the prospect of a ‘MAGA Superman’ when the first trailers were released. However, director James Gunn’s remarks that Superman is an immigrant have prompted Fox News to label it “Superwoke”. So, is it going to be a classic - or kryptonite?Joining Piers Morgan to discuss is former Superman Dean Cain, YouTuber Nerdrotic, Jeremy Griggs from ‘Geeks & Gamers’ and ‘Film Threat’ publisher Chris Gore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the conditions can't Superman's actually a refugee. Isn't that an immigrant? They're trying to equate those things together, which I think is ridiculous because of the current politicization of that situation. James Gunn is not the kind of guy who's going to put an American flag

in his front yard during Fourth of July, and that's the kind of guy you need to be to create Superman. I did not like this movie at all. Every man in this movie is weak and he cries. Chris, there is one silver lining here, which I think you touched on. Dresses, short skirts, High heels, cleavage. Thank you, James Gunn, for that. Hollywood's trying, has been trying to remove masculinity for, it seems like, the last decade.

Once again, it needs to be White Boy Summer to bring people back to the box office. The new Superman movies being the subject of intense debate in anticipation, which began more than a year before its release. It could be a make-or-break moment for the waning dominance of superhero movies and the cinematic blockbusters writ large. Some fans were energized by the... the prospect of a MAGA Superman when the first trailer is released. Director James Gunn's remarks, the Superman is an immigrant, however, prompted Fox News to label it superwoke. So is it going to be a classic or kryptonite?

Joining me with their blistering whistle-stop verdict, Superman himself, actor Dean Kane, Gary Bukler, aka Nordrotic from the Nadrotic YouTube channel, Jeremy Griggs from Geeks and Games, a publisher at Film Threat, Chris Gore. Well, welcome to all of you. Right, Dean, let's start with you as the resident Super... expert, if you played him, your view of this new movie?

Well, I'm excited for it. First of all, these guys all know more about Superman than I do. I promise you that right now. All geniuses. They've never been Superman. That's the key difference. Yeah. Except in their own mirrors.

I'm sorry. I'm excited for this film. I was excited to see it. It looked like a lot of fun. James Gunn had a lot of humor in that original Guardians of the Galaxy. I was excited for it. I still am excited for it. But, you know, the idea they start talking politics, and Superman is an immigrant.

Superman is actually a refugee and was adopted and assimilated into American culture tremendously well. And so that's a little bit different. Isn't that an immigrant? No. No? It's a refugee. A refugee is an immigrant, so are they, really. Yeah, but you've got to understand, Pierce, the United States is the most immigrant-friendly country on the planet by far.

We take more than the next four countries, legal immigrants every year, more than the next four countries combined every single year. Right. So why would you mind if a narrative is that Superman's an immigrant? Why wouldn't that be a thing to celebrate? No, I don't mind that narrative, but the truth is he is a refugee. He is a child and a refugee. It's because they're trying to equate those things together, which I think is ridiculous because of the current politicization of that situation. So that's the part that makes me go, look, don't try and make it all woke and crazy. Keep that character as, you know, the way I like him is truth, justice, and the American way. And I was hoping that would be the case in this film. And I hope it is the case.

And I'm still looking forward to it. Okay. Let me bring in the jockey. What do you feel about this? I mean, I've read quite a few reviews spinning around online. And the general view is it's not bad, bordering on quite good, that it's not as political as people are trying to frame. it. What's your view? Oh, it's not woke at all. What variety was doing, Mark Malkin, particularly because he's really good at his job, is baiting adult pretenders into saying something

stupid. And they did. And I overall, despite what I felt about the trailers, I thought the marketing was, they at least tried to be fun. And he didn't have like Rachel Zegler out there pissing people off for two years. And it was at that last minute. By the way, by the way, I had breaking news on her. I went to the first night of Evita in London's West End. She's the lead, and she was absolutely brilliant. So even though she's very irritating in her public pronouncements of a woke nature and she basically bombed the Snow White movie because of it, she's actually an incredibly talented performer.

Can you ask her to stay over and do those plays? Yeah, I was going to say, that's great. Can you keep her? That will make us all happy. We're happy to hear that she was great. I just, I actually posted, I tweeted her or said it to her on her. to say, look, just park the the politics and the woke stuff and focus

on your incredible talent will all be very happy. Anyway, back to Superman. Back to Superman. Despite all of that last minute trip where it started, you know, Fox News said it was woke and people were worried it's going to be political. No, that's not

the problem with this movie. The problem with this movie is it's overwhelmingly overwhelming. It's just mid at best. I know some people are going to like it. Somebody here absolutely hates it. And we're going to get back to like a normal conversation with this, the kind I used to have in my comic shop where we'd be just fighting over plot points and story structure and adaption of character or interpretation of character in the comic shop. That's what, and the discourse

is going to be crazy. I will say without a doubt, the Snyder bros out there are going to have a field day with this. Well, let's find a sniper bro. Jeremy. I'm definitely not Snyder, bro. Zach Snyder does not like me, but, and I don't like his movies, but I liked his version of Superman better than this one. Now, I was looking forward to this movie. I like James Gunn stuff. I've liked all of his Guardians movies. I even liked his movie that he didn't direct it, but Brightburn. It was like an evil take on Superman, and I enjoyed that one. I did not like this movie at all. This movie drove me crazy because Superman is very weak in the movie, and he's always in a defensive state. always. It's not overly political or anything like that. They're not beating you over the head with the immigration stuff. None of that is happening. But when you start to pick it apart, it actually has a lot of elements where every man in this movie is weak and he cries. And they're all emotional. Is that true? They're all emotional. This is what they did with James Bond. They started, they turned him from a steely-eyed dealer of death who, you know, romance woman after woman who drank heavily,

shot people, and they turned him into this blubbing credit. And I was like, why would you do that? And they're now they're doing to Superman. Why are they all going to cry? He's never like stoic. He's never a person that commands the moment. This is Superman. When Superman is in your presence, you should be in awe of that moment at all times. And half the time, they're treating him like he's the dumb jock in school, but we have to kind of respect him because he can throw the football far. That's kind of how

they treat Superman in this where they're kind of like, what do you do? And they second guess him. He always needs help. And I didn't like it. And again, I want to preface this. This is not against James Gunn. I hate James Gunn as a person, but I love him as a director. I think he's a phenomenal director. I think he's a great director. And all of his stuff has been good, but none of it worked. The comedy was weird. Crypto was, crypto made me like baby Yoda. That's how annoying crypto was in this. He was so aggravating. Let's bring Chris in because he loved it. Chris, why did you love it? well i can't say that i loved it i enjoyed it more than uh jeremy and gary i guess but it is flawed it is a movie for kids this is kids and families will eat this up it's a gen z

tic-tok generation superman absolutely for short attention spans it feels like the movie feels like a recap video of the first season of a superman tv series it moves so quickly and once you it's like jangling Keyes, every scene, every scene, jangling keys. But the thing it gets right is the character of Superman. I think this is early in his heroic career. So he's making more and more mistakes. I like David Corn Sweat. At the same time, they changed the lore about his Kryptonian heritage,

and I despise that change. I hope they fix it at some point in the future. Crypto, I didn't mind. People love dogs. but this is so the polar opposite of what Zach Snyder did, a more adult vision of Superman, a more serious approach. And James Gunn took literally the opposite approach

on almost every choice. It's colorful, it's goofy, it's much more comedic, and a lot of comedy doesn't land, but some of it's very good, you know? So it's good to be as scary. I feel very proprietary about Superman, because he's a,

reporter, right? He's a journalist. He's one of us. So the fact that Superman actually is a journalist is a big deal for the world of journalism. We get unfairly berated around the world. And here's one of our own who's actually Superman. So let me come back to you, Dean. A present company accepted, who's been your favorite Superman? Who is to you the epitome on screen of what Superman should actually be? Mine would be Christopher Ree. I just, I just thought the first was the best. He was Superman. Yeah, no question about it.

I remember the movie when it came out. I believed a man could fly. I had seen the George Reeves show, and I'd seen that. But when I saw Christopher Reeve on screen, when I saw him do that, he became the definitive Superman to me. And even as he went on, I didn't see the last couple of them, but the first few were outstanding. And even when I played Superman, because in my incarnation,

Clark Kent was a character. Superman was the disguise. So I just sort of pretended I was Christopher Reeve. And he is my favorite Superman. He's my number one Superman. I thought he had that great combination of sincerity and strength at the same time. That little wink in the eye and that little twinkle in the eye.

That's Superman to me and that to me is the number one Superman. Well, not as Superman. It's how James Bond should always remained as well. I agree with you there. Now, Nadrothi, this issue of the political side of it, there is a fictitious, militarized nation of Boreavia, which has, with US backing, been planning to invade the poor and illiquid country of Jahampur.

Many people, a kid in Jai and Paul, calls out Superman, he knows the help isn't coming from other countries on earth, he needs something divine, something stupid to save him. You know, many people are saying, this is clearly Israel, Palestine, Jaham poor, is Palestine and that therefore it's an anti-Israel movie because it portrays the invaders as the bad guys, etc. I mean, did you get that feeling from it? Not at all. I think this, the screenplay was done before October 7th and I think you can put that allegory. I mean, you could also look at it as

like Russia versus Brown Ukraine too, minus the U.S. backing. But it was all manipulated by Lex. It was so comical and it wouldn't really be a great representation because the country of brown people just sat around in the desert the whole time waiting for Superman to show up in the movie. It's done very comic book so yeah, I'm sure people will try to impress that impression

put that impression on it but it wasn't there. It was just there. Basically a gag. I had a major moment last night because my daughter suddenly he's 13, nearly 14, going on 34 and she said to me, Let's have a movie night. It was just me and her on last night.

I said, great. And then thinking, hopefully it won't be one of those 13-year-old girl movies. Why don't you watch Top Gun Maverick? Which I think, Nadrotic, you certainly know, is one of my favorite movies ever. And we sat and watched it. And she absolutely loved Top Gun Maverick, which for me is a massive breakthrough moment as a father. But because it means I can now segue her into Rocky, I can segue her into The Godfather.

There's no limit now. once we've crossed the Rubicon of Top Gun Maverick. Will she like the Drotty, do you think, this Superman, if she likes Top Gun Maverick, or is it going to be too young? I don't think she will. Top Gun Maverick is one of the best films of the last decade easily, and this is at very best forgettable.

It's absolutely forgettable. There's no through line. The characters are paper thin, and ultimately, James Gunn, was not the right guy for the job. In the nerds fear, we all questioned if this guy who was really good at taking quirky characters, including a raccoon and making them relatable, could he do something with a traditional character? Is James Gunn the kind of, he admitted himself that he couldn't crack Superman until a couple of years ago.

James Gunn is not the kind of guy who's going to put an American flag in his front yard during Fourth of July. And that's the kind of guy you need to be to create Superman, to direct a Superman, to write a Superman. Okay, so Jeremy, there's been some pretty snippy reviews. Even The Guardian didn't like it. The Man of Steel played with square face soullessness by David Corrin Sweat. Has an uninteresting crisis of confidence. Gunn's clustered, pointless franchise restarted. The Times said James Gunn's turn the ninth big screen film into an indigestible mush.

Empires take, the biggest saving grace, crypto, the cheeky cape wearing canine psychic. It may not be a great movie, and Crypto's a very good dog. But then Time Out, says David Corenstrup is the best man of steel since Christopher Reeve. So what's your view of what they're saying there? Well, the best man of steel since Christopher Reeve, of course, would be the man on the panel with this.

Right there. I mean, so. Thank you. Oh, you meant Dave. Oh, yeah, definitely not two years. But anyway, but no, I mean, this is the problem with this movie. I think with Chris bringing up the TikTok mindset is that's the mindset. This movie moves so fast.

And it ultimately is it's just a bad mix. James Gunn works perfectly with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't work perfectly with DC characters who are more, you know, darker and a little more grounded at times and need a more serious tone. And that's really what happened here. I'm not against the MCU. I recently have one of the few people in my sphere that like Thunderbolts and most people, Gary, hated that movie.

And so it's not about that I'm against the MCU tone. It's that it doesn't work for Superman. Superman needs to be taken seriously. It doesn't mean it can't be fun. You go back to the Christopher Reeve movies. There's some whimsical, goofy stuff in those movies as well, but Superman is taken seriously when Superman needs to be taken seriously. And none of those moments happen in this.

He is on the defense, the majority of this movie. Yeah, I don't like the sound of that. He is always needing someone else's help. Always. Not only that, Ma and Paw Kent are stupid, dumb rednecks. And I'm from Alabama, so I get allowed to say that, okay? It's like my family is Ma and Paul Kent. They're stupid and they're dumb in this movie.

And you are a stupid dumb redneck, Jeremy. That is true. That is true. I'm thinking if you're going to cast some dumb rednecks, call my family. I mean, come on. What are we doing? But my and Paw Kent are very stupid. to the point where you're like, okay, how did you raise this guy if you're this stupid?

And I don't want to give a mega spoiler, but there's a huge, huge twist to Superman's story with his other parents, his real parents, that cancels out this whole movie. Okay. It's a disaster. It's a disaster what they did. It bothers me. It's worse. It's worse than Paul.

Sorry, Dean. Apologies. It's worse than Paw can't getting laid. letting Clark get, uh, Pa Kent getting sucked up into a tornado. It's actually worse than that scene. It's worse than that. It's worse than that. It's worse than that.

It must be horrific. It bothers me, though. I want to ask Chris, though, because Chris, there is one silver lining here, which I think you touched on. You said it's also refreshing to see women allowed to be sexy in a modern Hollywood movie, heels, skirts, cleavage, and so on. Yeah, it's shocking. So you notice it when you see it.

I mean, heterosexual or normal relationship. are under attack in Hollywood movies and seeing women allowed to be women, dresses, short skirts, high heels, cleavage, much cleavage. Thank you James Gunn for that. It's weird to see because it's absent from all the Marvel Fair. All the women are desexualized.

They're not allowed to truly be women. They're kind of like they have that Florence Pew kind of nothing body. It's like the Bond girls have all basically gone non-buy. They've got to get them back. I'm hoping that Amazon are going to reverse this trend. They've got to be in the glam back. You know, make Bond what he was originally and bring the glam Bond girls back.

He needs his mojo back. Yes. It is to stop crying and start, you know, just being boned. Shagging. Dean, I want to play you a clip. This is from you and Terry Hatcher in Supermail, of course, the TV series. Let's take a look. Hey, you got to play tonight, son.

He can stay with me. Don't you think all the mirrors above the bed would keep him awake? Count on it. How can it be? Handsome, hot Superman, hot woman on his arm, another hot woman trailing after him. That's what you want of the movies. Was Dean Kane in that scene?

I didn't see him anywhere. I saw Terry Hadger. I saw Terry Hadger. I didn't see Dean Hatcher. As you should. I think a lot of women saw Dean Kane in that clip. Trust me. But, Dean, I mean, it seems like happier, simpler times for Superman.

Less complicated. Which I love. But here's the thing that Jeremy said that really caught my attention was that Ma and Pa, Kent, were really stupid, which drives me crazy because him being raised by Ma and Paul Kent are those small town American values that makes him who he is. And that just kills me because we had that in our show. We also had beautiful women, and I think Terry Hatcher was the best lowest lane of all time.

So we were very blessed. But I thought that was so important, Because in my own life, my dad is a small town farmer from South Dakota. And by my most difficult times, I could go to him, and he would give me great advice with great morals and great values. And that's so much of what I thought Superman was and why he was uniquely American, which is why I love truth, justice, in the American way.

You know, it's interesting. I mean, it's been a massive debate about whether the Formula One Brad Pitt movie was going to be a hit because the narrative was Americans don't care about Formula One, even though Drive to Survive the TV series, the streamer series, had done surprisingly well in America. Anyways, now turned out it's been a hit, certainly exceeded expectation. And I guess in the end, Adrotic,

in the end, money and success will talk, right? If this movie is a big hit, a big commercial success, then all the narrative about, well, he's too weepy, he's do this, it's too comedic, it's all going to disappear. and it'll be Superman's back better than ever. Yeah, unfortunately, Superman isn't very super in his own film, as opposed to F1 where Brad Pitt is great.

And what F1 did right was make a, it didn't try to reinvent the wheel, for lack of a better analogy, but it made a sports movie, a racing movie. And I don't know anything about F1, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I heard it was like Daze of Thunder, but for Formula One. Yep. Yes.

In other words, I know I'm going to love it already. It's like, of course, Route 1. Just give us what we want. Stop overthinking movies. Top Gun Maverick was the most brilliant sequel ever because everything was a nod to the first one. It was exciting. It was dramatic.

It was the perfect length. And I think the same with this formula, why I haven't seen it yet, I can't wait to see it from the reviews of it. Many of which were like, eh, it's not this, it's not the... You know what? In that case, I'm going to love it.

It doesn't over... think what's on the tin. It turns out people still want to see the traditional male lead. They do. Something that Hollywood has been, Hollywood's trying, has been trying to remove masculinity for it seems like the last decade. Yes. And now,

once again, it needs to be white boy summer to bring people back to the box office. I don't know if I've told you this, but I bumped into Barbara Rockley recently at a dinner. I was sitting, actually sitting with Dame Judy Dench. So imagine a dynamic, right? And Barbara Rockley comes over. I never met it. And I said,

I know you're looking for a new bond. I said, I think it's time you went a little bit older, a little bit suave, a little bit of gray in the hair, and bring him back as a steal-e-eye dealer of death with a little twigling his eye. And she said, what are you thinking, Pears? I said, well, it's not a massive leap from Pierce Brosnan to Pierce Morgan.

And she said, it may not be the you, Pierce, but to me, it's Grand Canyon size. So look, give me a number that makes this movie a hit. What's he got to take? Oh, for James Guns Superman or what I like to call Superman's James Gun, it definitely needs to make

$700 million just to make its money back. There's been a lot of conjecture. But if it hits 600, 700, they can move on. They can say, hey, it's a decent start. We have a foundation and they can move on. Their biggest problem peers

was instead of launching an entire universe, you just should have focused on making one good Superman movie. That was their biggest mistake and this is not it. Well, let's set the bar to be generous at 600 million. Do you think the drop you, do you think he's going to do that? Yes or no?

It's a possibility. It's a possibility. We haven't mentioned this, but like the movie is getting pretty well received overall from the normies, as we call them, the average moviegoers. Eighty-three percent on rotten tomatoes, I think. Yeah, and the audience score is like

at 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, is this early on. So, you know, we see it, we always see a huge bump initially. And that's a verified audience score. So, Jeremy, will it do 600 million? Yes or no? I think it will do 600, uh, based on the fact that the tracking is saying around $200 million worldwide.

And it does have good word of mouth from the, the average moviegoers. I don't think 750 is about as high that I can see this movie doing it. If it does 750, they're going to deem that a success for sure. Okay. Chris, do you think it's going to be a hit or not? Yes, I do think it will be a hit because it's really geared towards kids and families. There'll be a lot of walk-up business. A lot of the estimates are based on pre-sales, reserve tickets.

And as we've seen with terrible movies like Minecraft or Super Mario, those movies did really well with walk-up business. People walk-up families, they buy tickets. I think it'll be 700 plus. Okay. And Dean, final word to you, is it going to be a hit? It has to be because James God and Peter Saffron are now the head of DC Studios and this is their flagship thing.

So if it's not, then DC Studios is dead and maybe Superman will have to get, you know, rebirthed again because it must be. It must be a hit for them. All right. Well, we're leaving it on that reasonably positive collective note, I think. Gentlemen, thank you all very much. Pierce Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me.

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