James Gunn has set the record straight regarding conspiracy theories about Henry Cavill’s return as Superman.
Thanks to a slip-up by Nathan Fillion, fans started pointing fingers at James Gunn, claiming he’d lied about the timing of Henry Cavill’s axing as the Man of Steel.
In an interview with Collider Fillion revealed how he found out he’d be playing Guy Gardner saying, “We were actually at the premiere party after ‘Suicide Squad’ and he [James Gunn] was in a huge crowd of people. We saw each other in the crowd, and I congratulated him, ‘Oh, my God, that was amazing. It’s so great.’ He goes, ‘Hey, did Peter [Safran] tell you what we’ve got for you next?’ I said, ‘No, he hasn’t said.’ He looked around like someone was gonna be listening. We were in a throng of people, but he leaned over and said, ‘You’re gonna be Guy Gardner.'”
The problem with that statement is that “Suicide Squad” was released in 2021, before Gunn came on board as co-CEO of DC Studios with Peter Safran, and before Henry Cavill made his Superman cameo in “Black Adam” (which was released in October 2022). This lead Henry Cavill fans to claim Gunn had “lied” about his intention to keep Henry Cavill in place as Superman.
James Gunn took to his Threads social media account to set the record straight saying, “I don’t quite understand how that fits. Aside from the fact I had no interest in running DC until Peter [Safran] decided to do it with me so he could do the exec stuff & I could focus on creative. When I was hired to write Superman it was always intended as & pitched as a new Superman story, so why would I lie about not planning that at the Squad premiere which would have amounted to the same thing at the end of the day? How does this particular conspiracy theory make sense?”
The fact is, Fillion misspoke, confusing “Suicide Squad” with 2023’s “Guardians of the Galaxy – Volume 3”.
Previously known as “Superman: Legacy”, the cast of the film, now simply titled “Superman”, features David Corenswet as Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Terence Rosemore as Otis, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner/Green Lantern, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, MarÃa Gabriela de FarÃa as The Engineer, Neva Howell as Martha Kent, and Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan Kent.
Directed by James Gunn, “Superman” is scheduled to be released July 11, 2025.
Why not just admit they were planning on rebooting Superman at this point. It wasn’t Gunn’s decision, it was the studio’s.
Cavill got to do a fun cameo (in a movie that everyone knew was not going to perform well) and the DCEU fans are happy.
What’s the big deal?
People’s anger is misplaced. They are angry because they felt Cavill was being lead to believe that there would be more Superman appearances given the fact of his cameo in Black Adam and the now deleted cameos in Flash and Aquaman. However, that has nothing to do with James but the WB who lied to Cavill.