Quotes from James Gunn

I love raccoons. I had a raccoon figurine collection as a kid, and I now have two movies with 'Ranger Rick' jokes in them. I love 'em. They come in my back yard all the time, and we just stare at each other like a couple of idiots.

When I was a small child, I partially learned to read with comics, in particular with 'Scamp,' about the Lady and the Tramp's male child. That was the prime comic that made me fall in love with comics as a kid.

One rule of invention: before you can invent it, you have to imagine it.

I would say the main thing is, don't just copy yourself, which is what a lot of sequels do. And in some cases, it works. Like James Bond movies. But James Bond is a different type of character.

I like Jason Statham movies, like 'The Transporter' or whatever. I watch them all the time when they come on TV. Then I saw 'Crank,' and I couldn't believe how awesome it was.

It's great being a producer! Why am I wasting my career writing and directing? Those are actual jobs in which you work. Being a producer, it's kind of like you just go to the set, yell at a couple of people, and then stay up all night dancing in nightclubs.

The popularity of fantasy surpassing science fiction and the popularity of apocalyptic fiction, particularly for young adults, may indicate a desire to escape a more difficult and confusing reality, even in astrophysics and particle physics.

Comics were not something that as a young kid you could say you were into in Manchester, Missouri. Kids did not read comic books back then.

When people go to the theater, people say they want something different, but what they really want is something the same with slight permutations. To really not know what is going to happen next is a hard thing.

The truth is that I didn't start out making commercial movies. My films were not film festival movies with the possible exception slightly of 'Super,' but I was able to nurture my gifts through the works of artists making lower budget films that needed a place and an outlet.

Getting so much attention all at once, with so many people who want something from you or want to talk to you... for someone who is overly sensitive to other people's needs, that can be difficult.

Definitely, 'True Detective' was a great example of one director, one story. It worked fantastically well. Well, I thought it worked fantastically well; I know a lot people didn't.

I feel like I've kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I've been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can - even if it's about aliens and talking raccoons - it works.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with different planets in the solar system, and I used to create, for every single planet, a different alien race with a certain kind of pet, a certain kind of house, a certain kind of water system, and everything. I would draw these pictures. I had hundreds of these pictures in a box.

I have a very strong imagination and have since I was a little kid. That is where a lot of my world comes from. It's like I'm off somewhere else. And I can have a problem in life because of that, because I'm always off in some other world thinking about something else. It's constant.

I've been making movies a long time. I'm a professional at it. I'm not a professional at making soundtracks - that's not my job. My job is to put the right songs in the movie so the movie works the best it possibly can.

I'm a little bit twisted, so what makes me laugh the hardest doesn't necessarily make other people laugh.

I think that one of the things that drives me in telling stories, and art in general, is finding the beautiful in a big mass of ugly.

I was as huge Spider-Man fan as a kid, but I really liked The Defenders a lot. I was also a big Moon Knight fan for some reason.

Honest to God, for me, I've never been a guy to stack projects. A lot of these other guys, they like to do this and then line up what they're doing next and line up what they're doing next. I just can't do it.

I was the kid in the neighborhood that was directing everyone else. I was director from the time I was a child.

I made 'Super' for $3 million, and that was filmed in 24 days. And that $3 million dollars went to a lot of things other than what shows up on screen. Once you get done with the unions and everything else, that's just, like, the basic cost of what you can make a movie for.

I like to plan everything out and know exactly what we're doing. It's always important to me to work with a cast and a crew that not only I respect their talent but I really like them as people.

I think of the Avengers as The Beatles, and the Guardians are the Rolling Stones. That is really how I feel about the groups.