Assuming everything goes exactly to plan, we’re now a full year out from James Gunn’s Superman movie. All eyes have been on this movie ever since he revealed he’d do a new, younger take on the character sans Henry Cavill. And in recent weeks, one thing has been made clear: we should all probably chill the hell out about this movie.
At time of writing, Superman is currently filming in Cleveland, and the past week has seen a deluge of set photos of David Corenswet in the full costume alongside other heroes like Mr. Terrific and Hawkgirl. Prior to that, Gunn spent weeks on social media shooting down rumors or potential leaks left and right with a dedication that was equally refreshing and exhausting. There’s an odd energy in the air as social media users voraciously consumes anything they can about this film and give their thoughts on grainy photos of costumes, people, and sets that aren’t being looked at in the proper context. And while on some level that’s can par for the course with movies these days, it feels like we’re hitting a point of no return, particularly when it comes to this genre.
Despite Warner Bros.’s numerous attempts, Superman hasn’t had a movie to call his own since Man of Steel. As the DCEU continued, he wound up more of a supporting player than anyone would’ve guessed. After reinvigorating his career with Mission: Impossible – Fallout and The Witcher, Cavill seemed ready to come back for real via Black Adam, but Dwayne Johnson’s power play blew up in both his and Cavill’s faces, to the point that it may have also led to the actor’s planned cameo in The Flash getting scrapped. The fractured nature of the DCEU ultimately made it so a movie with Superman getting top billing depressingly felt like a miracle instead of a natural part of the superhero movie lifecycle.
All of this stems from the bind Warner Bros. put itself in after Man of Steel’s divisive reception. Around the same time, the Injustice games and their wholly evil Superman got off the ground, in turn making that gimmick for the character stick around. Folks may not have liked “Dark Superman,” but it became a bit of a default in TV and movies: The Boys and Invincible star the Superman-alikes Homelander and Omni-Man, respectively, and both shows feature imagery that never let you forget who those guys are ultimately based on. Even Gunn tried his hand at a dark Superman of his own with 2019’s Brightburn. As such, it’s maybe not too surprising that the actual Superman shows Superman & Lois and My Adventures with Superman both feel like more radical departures than they probably are in reality.
In truth, 2023 was a rough year for superheroes at the theater, with movies from DC and Marvel both not hitting as hard as their respective studios hoped for. There’s been plenty of talk about what may replace them as the dominant tentpole genre and which of this year’s cape movies will hit with audiences beyond the surefire hit of Deadpool & Wolverine. Combined with this being the first actual movie for the new DC movie universe that WB insists on being a thing, everyone is practically praying for Superman to be good. If it is, then we’ve avoided another uneven actor tenure and toxic fanbase, and Gunn and company don’t boot Corenswet for someone else one movie later, right?
With the way fandom has been operating for years, it’s unfortunate that Superman is the next movie caught up in its “all or nothing” mentality. There’s admitted sympathy in wanting to not go through another wave of fandom toxicity for this particular brand, but it’s also fine to just treat this like a regular movie about Superman and not an endangered species on life support. Getting too lost in the sauce of what something could be makes it something it’ll never fully live up to, and it’ll just hurt once the high eventually comes down. By this point, we’ve all been burned by overhyping something to kingdom come, so let’s not repeat the same mistakes we did in the 2010s.
Superman releases in theaters one year from today: July 11, 2025.
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