During the buildup to Black Adam, rumors began gathering pace that Superman was poised to show up for a quick cameo to tease the showdown star and producer Dwayne Johnson had been hyping up for years – but there was a worrying moment where it seemed as though Henry Cavill wouldn’t be involved.
Speculation ran rampant that the dreaded faceless body double who’d replaced the DCEU’s canonical Kryptonian in both Shazam! and Peacemaker would be drafted in if an agreement couldn’t be reached with Cavill, which would have ironically seen the imposter tie The Witcher star in terms of franchise appearances at three apiece (although Zack Snyder’s Justice League would technically up his Kal-El to four).
Thankfully, that didn’t come to pass, but cinematographer Lawrence Sher admitted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that plans were initially afoot to have a doppelganger suited and booted before Cavill agreed to show up in person – something that was no doubt facilitated by his friendship with Johnson and status as a client of Seven Bucks co-founder Dany Garcia.
“If we can get Henry to be in it, then we’ll figure that out on a future date. Let’s just quickly take this throne room set that we were working in … We’re going to create something for Dwayne to walk into … And we’re going to shoot it in like 10 minutes. Watching an actor come out of a full silhouette into that, was actually goosebumps. ‘Wow, this is 100 percent going to work. Now they need to figure out if they can get the guy with the head to be there.”
It would have probably been a smarter idea to scrap Superman’s guest spot altogether if Cavill wasn’t under the costume, because the fans would tear another anonymous Man of Steel outing to shreds. The Rock makes his films for the audience, thankfully, so the worst case scenario didn’t come to pass.
