James Gunn is, ostensibly, supposed to be directing the new Superman movie. But unfortunately, like many of us, James Gunn tweets too much. Distracted by an army of YouTubers—who, in an effort to grab views, make shit up, throw it onto Twitter, and reap the sweet benefits of engagement—Gunn is shooting down Superman: Legacy casting rumors left and right, and he’s taking Logan Lerman down with him.
Amid signal-boosting fan castings, Gunn cleared a few things up, namely that he has not cast anyone. “Not true,” he tweeted. “Haven’t had a single talk with a single actor about the role. Just making private lists, prepping material for auditions.”
As a sufferer of chronic can’t stop posting, Gunn continued to shoot down rumors without a care for the damage he wrought. That’s how actor Logan Lerman became an innocent bystander of Gunn’s handing out Pinocchios to YouTuber Grace Randolph’s tweets. When Randolph responded to his “not true” tweet, she took it as an opportunity to grab even more eyeballs via Gunn and declared Percy Jackson Gunn’s top choice. He, of course, denied the rumor, using the Mariah Carey defense. “For the record, I don’t know who that is.”
However, Gunn, who is probably a lovely guy and didn’t mean to deliver the bodying of a lifetime to Lerman and his team, clarified that it isn’t the actor’s fault Gunn doesn’t know who he is. “It’s certainly not any fault on the part of the actor if I don’t know their name,” he wrote. Gunn’s absolutely correct. This is a failing of branding and PR. We know he isn’t Percy Jackson anymore, but c’mon, we didn’t need to drag Lerman into this.
On the other hand, maybe Lerman’s seed has been planted, creating buzz around the water cooler, saying things like, “This Lerman is all anyone’s talking about”—will get him the gig. In the meantime, can someone send Lerman an edible arrangement in the process?