Crew
Director – Craig Mazin, Screenplay – James Gunn, Producers – Mark A. Altman, Dan Bates & Rick Mischel, Photography – Eliot Rockett, Music – Brian Langsbard, Visual Effects – Foundation Imaging (Supervisor – Mojo), Makeup Effects – Charles Porlier, Production Design – Dorian Vernacchio. Production Company – Mindfire Entertainment/Brillstein-Grey Entertainment.
Cast
Rob Lowe (The Weevil), Jordan Ladd (Nightbird), Thomas Haden Church (The Strobe), Paget Brewster (Ms. Indestructible), James Gunn (Minute Man), Jamie Kennedy (Amok), Mike Schwartz (U.S. Bill), Judy Greer (Deadly Girl), Kelly Coffield (Power Chick), Sean Gunn (Alien Orphan), Jim Zulevic (Mr Smart), Samantha Cannon, Lauren Cohn, John Doe, Tom Dorfmeister, Abdul Salaam El Razzac, Brian Gunn, Johan Stauf & Chuti Tiu (Eight), Barry Del Sherman (Zip Boy), Matt Champagne (Joel Tippin), Melissa Joan Hart (Sunlight Grrll)
Plot
The Specials are the sixth or seventh top superhero team in the world. Nightbird, who has the powers of birds, is the newest member to join the team. The group all attend the launch of a toy line based on them from Kosgro Toys. Team leader The Strobe then sees his wife Ms. Indestructible making out with The Weevil in a car in the parking lot. He stands up to give a speech, announcing the dissolution of The Specials. The abrupt announcement throws the members into confusion. Each of the group seek new directions in their own way.
Nowadays James Gunn is one of the top genre directors in the world, having directed films such as Slither (2006), Super (2010), the hugely successful MCU film Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and sequels, The Suicide Squad (2021) and launched DC’s Superman (2025). At the time that The Specials was made, Gunn was working solely as a scriptwriter and had turned a couple of Troma scripts for Tromeo & Juliet (1996) and Terror Firmer (1999). Gunn can also be seen on screen here in an acting role as Minute Man who has to keep reminding people that his name is pronounced minute (my-nyoot) as in small and not minute (min-it) as in the unit of time. Gunn’s brother Sean also has the role of the green-skinned alien orphan.
The actual director of the film was Craig Mazin. Around the time, Mazin was also bumming around Hollywood trying to make inroads and had done script work for comedies such as RocketMan (1997) and Senseless (1998). He would go on to specialise in comedy scripts with Scary Movie 3 (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006), the The Hangover sequels, Identity Thief (2003) and The Sheep Detectives (2026), before making a second directorial outing with another superhero spoof Superhero Movie (2008). Mazin later proved himself in a big way later going on to create the award-winning mini-series Chernobyl (2019) and the acclaimed post-apocalyptic series The Last of Us (2023- )
The superhero parody/comedy has been around for some time – see the likes of Hero at Large (1980), tv’s The Greatest American Hero (1980-2), The Return of Captain Invincible (1983), Blankman (1994), Orgazmo (1997), tv’s The Tick (1994-6, 2001-2) to the more recent likes of Pixar’s The Incredibles (2004) and The Boys (2019-26). The film that you could easily have pointed to that came out just before The Specials did and most resembles it is the more well-known, theatrically released Mystery Men (1999), which also featured a team of loser superheroes.
The Specials is certainly a snappier and funnier film than Craig Mazin’s subsequent more high-profile Superhero Movie, although nowhere near the league of James Gunn’s subsequent Super. It’s not exactly side-splitting but it is amiable enough. It was Gunn showing he was on his way to doing better things.
The Specials has definitely been made on a low-budget. The superhero headquarters is no more than somebody’s suburban home, for instance. The low-budget is most evident in the fact that we have a superhero film where there are no actual superpowers on display – there is very briefly at the end where each of the superheroes comes out and demonstrates their power but other than that single montage scene that is it. Rather the focus is on the comedic interaction of the mostly dysfunctional or frustrated superheroes and their problems.
The film also comes with a very impressive cast list, one that has become even more so since the film. Then Rob Lowe would have been the most well-known actor, a teen heartthrob of the 1980s whose career was just starting to rebound with tv’s The West Wing (1996-2006). Other names like Jordan Ladd, Thomas Haden Church, Paget Brewster and Judy Greer were all largely unknowns at the time, but subsequently found a fame.
Trailer here