Henry Cavill was going to be recast as Superman during the DCEU run
Warner Bros.
In an Entertainment Weekly feature, James Gunn revealed that Warner Bros. had reached out to him prior to 2021’s “The Suicide Squad,” itself intended to reintroduce audiences to the titular team after David Ayer’s “Suicide Squad” was met with disappointment back in 2016. Gunn was asked to overhaul Task Force X after Ayer’s attempt, but it seems he was also asked to re-envision Superman.
According to Gunn, Warner Bros. offered him a chance to direct a Supes movie before “The Suicide Squad,” and specifically wanted Henry Cavill’s Superman recast. That would have meant the actor would have been replaced prior to his cameo in 2022’s “Black Adam.” As Gunn explained, “It was even more messy than it is now,” which is putting it lightly.
Towards the end of the DCEU, things had gotten convoluted enough with Zack Snyder having departed 2017’s “Justice League” and handing directorial duties to Joss Whedon. That movie failed to resonate with audiences, and by 2021, there studio was convinced to allow the so-called “Snyder cut” of “Justice League” to be given an official release. When that film did arrive in 2021, it featured Cavill’s Superman.
Simply by virtue of existing, then, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” seemed to suggest Warner Bros. wasn’t totally against Cavill representing the Man of Steel going forward, and “Black Adam” provided yet more evidence. But according to Gunn, the studio was set on replacing Cavill long before Snyder was granted permission to finish his vision of the Justice League. Why didn’t such a thing actually happen? Well, the new DC Studios head said he simply wasn’t ready at the time. “I didn’t have that special idea of what that [film] would be,” said Gunn, who has recently spoken about wanting his “Superman” movie to be about one thing.
James Gunn is directing the Superman movie he was supposed to
Warner Bros.
The end of the DCEU was nothing short of a debacle. A behind-the-scenes power struggle that resulted in former DC Films head Walter Hamada leaving Warner Bros. didn’t exactly bode well for the franchise, and after “Black Adam,” “The Flash,” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” failed to deliver commercially and critically, the shared universe that started with Henry Cavill and Zack Snyder back in 2013 came to an end. Would things had been different had we got a James Gunn-directed Superman movie prior to the DCEU’s closure? Perhaps, but even with that in mind, it seems like a darn good thing that this earlier Gunn-helmed movie didn’t materialize.
For one thing, the DCEU already seemed to be flailing at the time, and I’m not sure a new Superman would have been all it took to right the ship. What’s more, the director would have been somewhat restricted by having to make his movie fit the wider DCEU aesthetic, which seems like it would have been far too stifling an experience for someone with Gunn’s distinct style and sensibilities. Much better to have the man oversee a whole new film in a whole new universe where he can fail or succeed on his own merits. What’s more, Cavill always seemed like a great Superman who never really got a great Superman story, so simply recasting the actor while maintaining the main DCEU storyline doesn’t seem like it would have been the best idea.
The question now is, will audiences who seem to have long since tired of superhero storytelling — arguably in response to the type of nonsense that characterized the demise of the DCEU — respond to Gunn’s vision and David Corenswet’s Man of Steel? We’ll find out when “Superman” flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.
