Before taking on the job of co-chairman and CEO of DC Studios, filmmaker James Gunn cut his teeth on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. In one of his first acts as CEO, Gunn says he paid homage to those roots by calling up Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, his old boss and mentor in his time with the MCU.

“Once I was done with Peacemaker, I had to do Guardians 3, and then when I was about ready to jump [back] into Peacemaker, I got hired to be the head of DC,” Gunn explains in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “As soon as I got that job, I made a couple of calls, and the first one was to Kevin Feige telling him that I’m taking the [job as] head of DC.”

Gunn doesn’t explain what was discussed, but it seems safe to assume that the conversation centered on Gunn’s new role in relation to Feige’s, and how DC and Marvel might co-exist in the superhero movie space.

It’s taken some time for Gunn to get his new DC Universe fully into place, with Creature Commandos serving as the first official entry in the DC Studios canon, with Superman coming up as the first big blockbuster of Gunn’s tenure. He’s also turned his attention back to the long awaited second season of his hit DC streaming series Peacemaker.

“The second [call] was to John Cena, and I said, ‘I’m getting this gig, and I still want to do Peacemaker, but it’s going to have to wait. We’re going to have to get Superman working first’,” Gunn says, explaining the gap between the first and second seasons of the show.

Now, Superman is now gearing up to hit theaters on July 11, with the premiere of Peacemaker season 2 following on August 21. For more, check out our guide to all of the upcoming titles in DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters and all other upcoming DC movies to put on your release radar.