James Francis Gunn Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, novelist, and musician. He started his career as a screenwriter in the mid-1990s, writing the scripts for Tromeo and Juliet (1996), The Specials (2000), Scooby-Doo (2002) and its sequel, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead. He then started working as a director, starting with the horror-comedy film Slither (2006). He subsequently wrote and directed the web series James Gunn's PG Porn (2008–2009), the superhero film Super (2010), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and its sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).