It has been confirmed that a younger actor will be donning the red and blue suit of Superman after much back and forth on the subject.
After months, even years of a rather public tussle for the future of the cinematic Superman character, it seems like a path has finally been decided for the next film and perhaps beyond. In the last year or so especially, we’ve seen plenty of major Hollywood players such as James Gunn, JJ Abrams, Dwayne Johnson not to mention former Warner Bros top brass like Walter Hamada all try to assert their influence on exactly what form the next Superman movie should take and just as crucially, who should wear the cape.
The long-standing owner of said cape, Henry Cavill has been pretty active too, only recently taking to Twitter to announce that he was back as Superman and that this was the beginning of a new dawn.
Well, it turns out that Cavill was right but not in the way that he (or fans of his take on the Last Son of Krypton) will appreciate. A new dawn is coming and it appears that Cavill won’t be suiting up and flying towards it as James Gunn, the new creative head of the DCU, has taken to Twitter to put an end to the constant rumours about who the next Superman might be.
It’s been a tricky start for Gunn and his co-head at DC Studios, Peter Safran. The constant rumours about the DCU’s future have been foregrounded by huge movie stars like Cavill and Johnson making very public declarations, which don’t seem to have been confirmed internally.
The whole saga (not to mention the Batgirl cancellation just before they came into their positions) has done little to publicly alleviate the notion that the Warner Bros superhero division is a chaotic mess. An unfair badge to be adorned with given the duo’s short time in post and their obvious reluctance to share any details with fans just yet as they hash out the DCU’s future in private.
Reaction to Cavill being slighted was always going to cause some pushback from fans, so you can see the thinking from DC Studios here. Get the news out now and deal with the fallout rather than have that issue dominate the narrative in early 2023 when the new direction of the DCU is revealed. The last thing DC Studios need is fan revolt blotting out excitement stoked by Gunn’s soon-to-be revealed roadmap for the DC Universe. Gunn then, took to Twitter to announce that the next Superman would not be Cavill, stating…
“In the initial stages, our story will be focusing on an earlier part of Superman’s life, so the character will not be played by Henry Cavill. But we just had a great meeting with Henry, and we’re big fans, and we talked about a number of exciting possibilities to work together in the future.”
Peter & I have a DC slate ready to go, which we couldn’t be more over-the-moon about; we’ll be able to share some exciting information about our first projects at the beginning of the new year.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
Whilst that post does have a positive ring to it, hinting at future appearances for Cavill, the actor himself posted a typically classy response on social media which called it ‘a changing of the guard’, adding that ‘it had been a fun ride’ and that ‘my time to wear the cape has passed.’
No future tense there, then and Cavill seems to believe that his time as the Man of Steel is over.
Gunn confirmed that he is writing the new Superman film which will focus on the characters early days in Metropolis and as it stands, no director has yet been named although Variety is reporting that Ben Affleck is in the mix.
The outlet also added that JJ Abrams’ take on Superman which is being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates is still in ‘active development’ despite having been very quiet for a very long time.
With news coming earlier this week that Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 3 may not be happening (although the director herself refutes this), the future of the new-look DCU is starting to become clearer and it looks like a near-total reboot of the ‘Snyderverse’ legacy characters could be on the way. That’s with Superman now confirmed to be changing and other younger versions of Batman, Wonder Woman and others following in a new tightly-connected ‘universe’, perhaps.
We’ll find out early in the new year, according to Gunn but whether you’re a fan of Cavill’s take on Superman or not, it’s hard not to feel sympathy for the actor who has been more than a little hard done by in his near-decade as the Last Son of Krypton.
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