This October’s Joker will mark a first for the DC franchise. In contrast to Warner Bros.’ recent superhero movies which have maintained a cohesive shared universe though, the Joaquin Phoenix-headed villain origin story will stand apart from the DCEU as its own thing. Fans have high hopes for the film, but it’s difficult to predict how well it will do. If it does turn out to be a success, however, the studio has big plans for these “Elseworlds” type movies.
We Got This Covered has been informed that DC’s thinking of making a live-action Superman: Red Son film. For those who don’t know, Mark Millar’s “Elseworlds” comic is about an alternate Man of Steel who lands in Stalinist Russia instead of rural Kansas and is a firm fan favorite. In fact, it’s already getting an animated straight-to-DVD adaptation coming soon. Plus, Supergirl season 4 was loosely inspired by the comic.
Much like how Joker didn’t rehire Jared Leto, the Red Son movie wouldn’t bring back Henry Cavill but instead star a new actor as the communist Kryptonian – yet another sign that the Brit has hung up his cape for good. It’s also worth mentioning that the source material features alt-versions of Batman and Wonder Woman as well, so we might end up with recast takes on those heroes, too.
What makes this intel plausible is that it’s far from the first time we’ve heard that a Red Son film might be in the works. Kong: Skull Island‘s Jordan Vogt-Roberts has revealed he pitched his version of the movie to the studio back in 2017. This caused Millar to respond that, though Vogt-Roberts’ pitch had been unsuccessful, two unnamed friends of his had been hired to direct it instead.
We’ve been told not to expect any official updates on Superman: Red Son for a while yet, as WB’s waiting to see how Joker goes down before properly moving forward with the project. But should that be a hit, we imagine the studio will push ahead with Red Son shortly after.
