Michael B. Jordan is no stranger to the comic book or superhero genres, having broken out in found footage sleeper hit Chronicle and voiced Cyborg in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, before going on to star in Josh Trank’s disastrous Fantastic Four and Ryan Coogler’s acclaimed Black Panther, while he also played a supporting role and executive produced Netflix series Raising Dion, and was announced to be producing a Static Shock movie through his Outlier Society banner.
A couple of years back, the actor admitted he’d spoken to Warner Bros. about Superman, but more recently ruled himself out of the running when it came to suiting up for J.J. Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reboot. It looks like we may have discovered why, after it was revealed yesterday that Jordan is set to develop a separate project focused on the Big Blue Boy Scout for HBO Max, which will follow the Val-Zod iteration of the character.
Details are so scarce that it hasn’t even been confirmed if the streaming Superman is going to be a movie or a TV show, but both are equally likely looking at the slew of feature length and episodic DC Comics adaptations in the works for WarnerMedia’s platform. A writer is attached, but we don’t know who that is either, so it can’t be ruled out that Jordan may end up starring as Val-Zod as well.
As you might expect from one of the fastest-rising talents in Hollywood, it could ultimately come down to a matter of scheduling, depending on how quickly the Val-Zod Superman comes together behind the scenes. Cameras start rolling on Jordan’s directorial debut Creed III later this year, while his remake of The Thomas Crown Affair recently took a big step forward by hiring a writer, on top of talk that Amazon’s Without Remorse could be getting a sequel, while he’s still got Static Shock on his plate, and Raising Dion was renewed for a second season by Netflix in January of last year.