How do you solve a problem like Superman? Well, if you’re the outgoing Warner Bros. and DC Films regime, you place a pair of projects revolving around the Big Blue Boy Scout into active development, neither of which feature the actor most fans would love to see reprising the role.
Henry Cavill was first cast as Man of Steel‘s lead in January 2011, but has made only three appearance in the 11 years since. In the wake of the SnyderVerse grinding to a halt after Joss Whedon’s disastrous Justice League, the star’s future has been the subject of intense and nonstop speculation.
J.J Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates are developing a feature film, Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society are working on an HBO Max episodic effort, and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl is set to debut in The Flash, which means that there are three non-Cavill Kryptonians on the way to our screens, but only the latter will be established as an active part of DCEU canon.
A new report by Variety has dived deep into the Discovery merger, and claims the internal belief is that “top-shelf characters such as Superman have been left to languish”, something the new owners of the company will be actively seeking to remedy.
That doesn’t mean the Cavill comeback is nailed-on, but it would make sense to utilize a well-known and popular figure that’s stated on numerous occasions he’s ready and willing to slip back into the spandex should he get the call. It’s brave new era for DC, and we’ll be very interested to see how Superman fits into it.