On the one-year anniversary of its release, fans of Zack Snyder’s Justice League are once again petitioning Warner Bros. to not only restore the so-called SnyderVerse, but bring back Henry Cavill as Superman, too.
Though 2013’s Man of Steel was critically mixed upon its release, the film has a strong following among Snyder fans due to its meditation on Superman being a tormented god of sorts. However, even those who disliked a “gritty” take on the blue boy scout heaped praise upon Cavill in the role.
Indeed, Cavill’s Superman was one of the strongest through-lines during Snyder’s run steering the ship of the DC Extended Universe, with his performances in Batman v Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League being a major highlight of those movies. You have to give the man props for enduring that god-awful computer generated upper lip in the fan-maligned Joss Whedon-directed theatrical cut of Justice League in 2017, too.
Cavill never truly got a chance to flesh out the character in his own solo follow-up to Man of Steel, either. And with the actor himself stating his eagerness to return, we’re not sure why WB has seemingly decided to abandon him in the role given that he is a fan favorite.
“Henry Cavill deserves a solo trilogy, team-up movies, Justice League Trilogy and more,” one fan wrote.
Even if WB was willing to bring back Snyder for DC, the director himself might not want to return considering he currently has his own franchise continuing to grow at Netflix. But regardless of that, Cavill would almost certainly knock it out of the park as Superman if another director were to take a shot at making a follow-up to Man of Steel.
Everyone from Kingsman: The Golden Circle director Matthew Vaughn to Daredevil season one showrunner Steven DeKnight have publicly expressed interest in doing so. In Vaughn’s case, he expressed doing a more classical and colorful take on the hero compared to Snyder’s vision. And DeKnight specifically named Cavill as his pick for a rhetorical follow-up flick. We think there’s plenty of potential for Cavill to helm the character in a tonally brighter follow-up — or continue with the whole “dark and gritty” approach — whatever the case my be.
“I just want him to reprise this iconic role and, at the very least, finish the character’s journey that started with Man of Steel,” one Twitter user wrote.
Some of the other now-defunct SnyderVerse DC projects would be great to see in some kind of HBO Max Original series of releases, for instance. With Darkseid being teased as the big bad to come in Zack Snyder’s Justice League — essentially serving as the DC version of Thanos — it seems like there could be plenty of more stories to tell in a second and third installment.
It appears that Cavill fans will just have to wait and see whether the recent merger of WB and Discovery can shake up the top brass at the movie studio enough to bring the actor back for a follow-up film.