James Gunn’s DC Universe Will Begin With “Young Superman”

Two Superman news headlines in one hour! As previously reported by everyone, film director James Gunn, previously responsible for the Guardians of the Galaxy series at Marvel and The Suicide Squad / Peacemaker for DC, has been hired to do basically everything else for DC — a new roadmap that will provide a unified universe to rival that one the Mouse has.

We don’t know what that universe will ultimately look like, but today we found out how it will start: Gunn himself is penning the script for a “Young Superman” movie. That isn’t the title, but a bigger question you may have is what this means for Henry Cavill, who was just promised a return to the tights like two minutes ago. He quit The Witcher for this!

Gunn admits there’s simply no place for someone of Cavill’s age in a movie about Supes fresh out of college. “In the initial stages, our story will be focusing on an earlier part of Superman’s life, so the character will not be played by Henry Cavill,” Gunn revealed. “But we just had a great meeting with Henry and we’re big fans and we talked about a number of exciting possibilities to work together in the future.”

This, basically, instantly negates the only selling point of The Rock’s Black Adam movie — the post-credits scene where Cavill appeared as Superman to set a vague “something” up. If you didn’t know, that was slipped into the film at the last minute when there was no plan yet. Rock’s idea, and Zaslav was too stupid to stop him.

“I will, after all, not be returning as Superman,” Cavill confirmed. “After being told by the studio to announce my return back in October, prior to [Gunn and Safran’s] hire, this news isn’t the easiest, but that’s life. The changing of the guard is something that happens. I respect that. James and Peter have a universe to build. I wish them and all involved with the new universe the best of luck, and the happiest of fortunes.”

The remaining non-Gunn DC films are still set to be released: “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” “Blue Beetle,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” and “The Flash” (though that last one may not be released widely).