After David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan were confirmed as Clark Kent and Lois Lane respectively, the next logical step for the Superman: Legacy casting process would surely have been some faces familiar to the Man of Steel’s mythos.
Instead, while the likes of Lex Luthor, Ma and Pa Kent, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White to name but a small few remain unaccounted for, writer and director James Gunn went ahead and added three brand new superheroes into the mix, taking many aback and immediately leading to accusations that he’d fallen into the exact same trap as Zack Snyder’s overstuffed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific, and Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner will all be welcomed into the DCU fold when Legacy arrives in July of 2025, but the studio’s co-CEO has already taken to Threads and responded to the criticism.
“I’ve never used one movie to set up another movie. The characters are there because they help tell Superman’s story better, no so we can set up separate projects in the franchise. Superman and Lois are the very clear protagonists.”
You could also infer that Gunn is taking a subtle shot at both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the old DCEU, both of which have been equally guilty on a number of occasions when it comes to looking too far forward at the expense of the story right in front of them that needs to be told first and foremost, so we should expect a veteran of each comic book company to put his focus in the right places.
