The surge of excitement that came with the sudden return of Henry Cavill’s Superman in Black Adam has been met with disappointment tonight. Cavill’s time as the Man of Steel is officially over, announced by DC Studios co-chief James Gunn himself. In a Twitter thread, Gunn began to reveal the future plans he and co-chief Peter Safran have come up with, and it starts with a new Superman movie that Gunn will write. That film will not be an origin story, but will focus on Superman’s early life, which means no Cavill in the role…
Among those on the slate is Superman. 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.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
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.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
Gunn confirmed that he has been working on the script for a while (there have been rumors of a Superman movie by Gunn for months), and that no director is in place. The project will be a movie and not a series of any kind.
I am writing (and have been for a while). We don’t know who is directing yet. https://t.co/RPwtAsUgZP
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
Cavill would confirm this news himself on Instagram shortly after…
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So there doesn’t seem to be any hard feelings between Cavill and Gunn, even though the former recently quit his gig on The Witcher around the same time as his Superman return happened. Not that Cavill is hurting for work or anything with Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle and Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare coming up.
When asked by a fan if Ben Affleck could possibly direct this Superman movie, Gunn didn’t say no. He said they’ve been meeting with Affleck on a directorial project but that nothing was set in place. It could be anything at this point.
Met with Ben yesterday precisely because he wants to direct & we want him to direct; we just have to find the right project. https://t.co/Haz1APdlVN
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
The suggestion is that Affleck’s time as Batman is also finished following his appearances in The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Affleck has long wanted to direct a DC Comics film, and was originally attached to The Batman before Matt Reeves took over, so this is overdue.
I feel like the real loser in this is…Dwayne Johnson. Johnson had been saying all of these DC Studios shake-ups were nothing but “noise”, but it’s looking increasingly like the power he believed he held over the studio is gone with Gunn and Safran’s arrival.
