Did Man of Steel make enough money to justify a sequel? Well, it earned $668 million at the box office, generated a further $120 million from DVD and Blu-ray sales in the United States alone and proved successful enough to launch an entire cinematic universe, so yes would be the short answer.
Do the fans want to see it? Based on how regularly the movie has trended, not to mention the backlash from certain sections of the online community towards J.J. Abrams’ reboot, that’s also a yes. Does Henry Cavill want to star in it? Well, the actor has always been keen to headline a second solo outing, and he wouldn’t have stuck around as the DCEU’s resident Kryptonian superhero for over ten years just to be a supporting player, so that one’s pretty cut and dried, too. And finally, is Warner Bros. interested in making it happen? Unfortunately, all the evidence says absolutely not.
If the studio wanted Cavill to lead a Superman franchise, then they’d have given him one a long time ago, but for whatever reason, any talk of a Man of Steel 2 has disappeared almost as quickly as it surfaced. And with Abrams’ project taking priority, it feels as though we’ll have to get used to the fact that the DCEU’s Clark Kent is only going to be a background presence at best.
However, tipster Mikey Sutton is now claiming that a Man of Steel 2Â with The Witcher star attached could happen as an HBO Max exclusive, albeit one that’s entirely dependent on the success of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. That being said, there’ve been conflicting reports about this as insider Daniel Richtman says that Henry’s only being offered cameos at this point and won’t get to lead another feature film.
Still, Sutton insists that a solo sequel is “likely” to happen on the aforementioned streaming platform and is “not out of the picture” just yet. So for now, we’ll be keeping our fingers firmly crossed.
