NORCROSS — Wesleyan School has its own band of superhero protectors.
Teachers by day and superheroes whenever duty calls, Thunderdan and his sidekick Double D have been immortalized now in two feature-length films created by Wesleyan alumni.

The first film was completed by a group of friends during their senior year at the Norcross school in 2007 and 2008. Following their first year of college, the group reunited while home in Gwinnett during summer vacation to film “Thunderdan 2: Revenge of the Garg.”

Wesleyan grad Matt Gossett reprises his role as history teacher Dan Byrne and his superhero alter ego Thunderdan. With the help of his teaching assistant and sidekick, Devin Dwyer (played by Price Davidson), aka Double D, and Devin’s wife Allison, new to the superhero beat as Heatwave Holby, Thunderdan clashes with the latest villain to threaten Wesleyan. The sinister Kasev Garg is played by the film’s director, Monish Tyagi, who co-wrote the script with Colin Sylvester.

“Thunderdan 2” premiered Monday night at Wesleyan, where much of the movie was filmed.

A long red carpet was laid out in front of the steps that led to the entrance of Wesley Hall and the school’s Powell Theater, which was filled with current students, alumni and a few parents awaiting the arrival of the stars, including Jordan Hodge and Kevin Ruiz.

“This movie is very, very focused on Wesleyan. It’s about Wesleyan teachers, Wesleyan students,” said Tyagi, who is studying film at the University of Southern California and was home on break for the holidays. “I’d been at Wesleyan for 12 years when I graduated and it was always somewhere close to my heart.”

The film parodies superhero and action-adventure movies including “The Dark Knight,” “Superman” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” while many of the characters are based on Wesleyan’s teachers and students.

“The place has so many great people, so many great characters, I thought it would be really fun,” Tyagi said of the sequel. “We just wanted to make something entertaining.”
“We really want to show them that we’re paying tribute to the experiences we had and we still care about this place,” Gossett added.