James Gunn Made Up Infinity Stone Lore In ‘Three Minutes’

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Superman writer and director James Gunn has revealed that he came up with the lore for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Stones in just “three minutes.” The Infinity Stones were the plot MacGuffins that drove the story of the MCU’s first few phases, culminating in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

James Gunn is understandably feeling himself quite a bit these days, as Superman has not only debuted to largely rapturous reviews and fan reactions but also grossed over $217 million at the box office in its opening weekend.

While Gunn’s interview with GQ — where he made the revelation about the Infinity Stones — was clearly filmed before the release of Superman, he still sounds like a man that sounds supremely confident in his abilities, even if one of those abilities is to largely BS a key piece of plot information.

James Gunn says he made up the Infinity Stone lore in Guardians of the Galaxy in three minutes

“I never understood what any of the phases were in Marvel. I don’t know what any of it means. I have no clue what it means. I knew there were Infinity Stones when they said, ‘You know, we’ve been thinking, and we think that maybe some of these things have been Infinity Stones in different ways. And so, could you write up what the Infinity Stones mean?’” Gunn told GQ.

“When I wrote the scene with The Collector explaining that there was this explosion, and the Infinity Stones were born, and what they mean and where they came from, that was literally me just sitting down for 3 minutes and writing that,” he continued.

“And that’s then what became the rest of the Infinity Stones. There was never anybody that said anything other than, ‘I think the red thing and the blue thing are going to end up being Infinity Stones’. That wasn’t in the plan to begin with.”

Given the success of Superman, it likely won’t be long until it’s revealed what Gunn will be working on next. While he’s the creative head of the DCU as co-CEO of DC Studios, Gunn is a writer and director at heart, meaning it won’t be long until he’s back in the director’s chair.

When asked about a sequel to Superman, though, Gunn has been aloof about the answer, saying things like “Define Superman 2,” leading fans to believe Superman’s next movie could be a crossover film, potentially with Batman — which, in my opinion, would be a mistake.

Gunn’s Superman and Matt Reeves’ The Batman — although independent of each other — have both been wins for DC Studios and Warner Bros. While the desire to have to two meet is understandable, it treads far too closely to the sins of the previous iteration of the franchise, Zack Sndyer’s DCEU.

While the comic book genre will never “die,” there is an argument that we’re on the back-slope of the post-credit scenes and cameos era of the endeavor. If you ask fans such as myself, they’ll likely tell you they’d rather see Superman simply doing cool Superman stuff — and Batman just doing cool Batman stuff — in a couple movies before diving into the Justice League.