James Gunn

James Gunn
James Gunn (in green), with Jenna Fischer, and actor Nathan Fillion, sign autographs at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors Convention, 2006
Born	August 5, 1970 (1970-08-05) (age 39) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Occupation	Screenwriter Director Film producer Novelist Actor Musician
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Jenna Fischer (2000-2008; divorced)

James Gunn (born August 5, 1970) is an American writer, filmmaker, actor, musician and cartoonist.

Biography

Gunn was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His siblings include actor Sean Gunn, actor and political writer Matt Gunn, producer Patrick Gunn (previously Executive Vice President of Mosaic Media Group) and writer Brian Gunn. For grade school he attended St. Joseph Manchester Elementary school in Manchester MO. James and all of his male siblings attended the same high school, St. Louis University High. Gunn attended Saint Louis University for his B.A. in Theatre. He continued his graduate studies at Columbia University, getting his MFA in Creative Writing. He married television and film actress Jenna Fischer on October 7, 2000, but they announced their separation on September 5, 2007. ^[1] Fischer and Gunn were divorced less than a year later.^[2]

Career

Gunn began his film making career with Troma Entertainment, for whom he wrote and co-directed Tromeo and Juliet. After contributing to several other Troma films, Gunn wrote, produced and performed in his own superhero comedy, The Specials, directed by Craig Mazin and featuring Rob Lowe, Thomas Haden Church, Paget Brewster, Judy Greer and Jamie Kennedy. Kennedy was instrumental in getting the film made, having been shown the script by James' brother Sean. Gunn lived in Kennedy's guest house while shooting the film.

Gunn's first major Hollywood screenplay was Scooby-Doo in 2002. In 2004, he wrote the initial screenplay for the remake of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, but left the project early to work on Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. That same year he also executive produced, and appeared in the mockumentary LolliLove, directed by and starring his then-wife Fischer. His directorial film debut was Slither, a comedy horror motion picture which was influenced by the wave of graphically violent horror B-movies of the 1970s and 1980s, largely created by such directors as John Carpenter, Lloyd Kaufman, David Cronenberg, Stuart Gordon and Fred Dekker; it bears close similarities to the manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito and older staples like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Tremors, Night of the Living Dead, The Brood, Shivers, and especially Night of the Creeps.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Slither grossed a $7,802,450 in its theatrical run in the United States and Canada, with a worldwide gross of $12,834,936,^[8] substantially less than its total budget of $29.5 million (including marketing costs and the $15 million^[8] production budget). Slither's DVD total rental gross reached $11.1 million^[9] and total DVD sales were $4,541,528as of November 5, 2006.^[10] However, Slither was listed as one of the “Top 25 DVDs of the Year” by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone magazine.^[11] The film review website Rotten Tomatoes, which calculates the consensus of critics across the USA, found that "Slither" was generally embraced favorably by critics, ranking as the 8th best reviewed film of 2006^[12] with a rating of "85% fresh".^[13]

Gunn has also penned a novel, The Toy Collector, and with Troma President Lloyd Kaufman co-wrote All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, about his experiences with Kaufman while at Troma. During his college years, he authored comics for several college newspapers and underground magazines. As a musician, Gunn released one album with his band, The Icons, Mom, We Like It Here on Earth. He has written music for the films The Low Life, as well as Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2.

Gunn's newest projects include the comedy short film Humanzee! 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.^[14][15][16] In an April 2009 interview on The Jace Hall Show, Gunn described Sparky and Mikaela as being "about a human racoon crime fighting team and they fight crime in both the forest world, among the furry animals, and in the human world".^[17] Gunn also has a short form web series for Spike.com titled James Gunn's PG Porn^[18] which made EW's The Must List^[19] and the film Pets, which Gunn will write and direct with Ben Stiller, Stuart Cornfeld and Jeremy Kramer producing. Pets will be a comedy that concerns a man who is abducted by aliens who want to turn him into a household pet. ^[20]

James Gunn was also one of the judges on the VH1 reality television show Scream Queens where 10 unknown actresses compete for a role in the film Saw VI. Gunn can be seen on the show directing contestants during acting challenges. The show was announced in June 2008 and debuted October 20, 2008 on VH1.

Partial filmography

Writer/director

• Tromeo and Juliet (1996) (uncredited as director)
• Slither (2006)
• James Gunn's PG Porn (2008—ongoing)
• Sparky and Mikaela (2008)
• Humanzee (2009)
• Super (TBA)

Writer

• Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
• The Specials (2000)
• Scooby-Doo (2002)
• Tube (2004)
• Dawn of the Dead (2004)
• Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)
• LolliLove (2004)

Actor

• Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
• The Specials (2000)
• Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)
• The Ghouls (2003)
• LolliLove (2004)
• Slither (2006)
• James Gunn's PG Porn - Episode: "Roadside Ass-sistance" (2009)
• Humanzee (2009)

Bibliography

• All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger with Lloyd Kaufman (1998)
• The Toy Collector (2000)
• Make Your Own Damn Movie: Secrets of a Renegade Director (introduction) (2003)

References

External links

• JamesGunn.com Official Site
• James Gunn at the Internet Movie Database
• James Gunn at MySpace