James Gunn describes Superman’s character on premiere day

Superman director and co-head of DC Studios James Gunn opened up about the new Superman’s “lighter” character in an interview with Variety on Monday, July 7.

The new Superman movie premiered at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre the same day.

On the red carpet, the writer and director shared that his “lighter” approach to the DC Comics superhero was meant to bring back “the color and the joy” of Superman’s origins.

"In some ways, it’s lighter. But there’s a lot of heavy stuff in the movie as well," Gunn explained, following Zack Snyder‘s grittier take on the character in Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), and Justice League (2017). "But the character himself is lighter."

Gunn further explained that Clark Kent is someone from a non-dysfunctional family: "He has parents who love him, he’s growing up in a loving household with support and emotional presence from his parents, and he’s the result of that."

"And I think that he’s a pretty well-adjusted guy because of that. However, he has his flaws as well," Gunn added.

The director also said that he loves "the color and the joy" of DC Comics, which he admired growing up.

"I wanted to imbue this film with that feeling," James asserted.

RELATED: James Gunn almost didn’t do ‘Superman’ movie because of David Corenswet