Superman (2025 film)

James Gunn's 'Superman' movie is corny. Which is why it gets Superman right...

As James Gunn walked into our interview to promote the newest “Superman,” the A-list Hollywood creative didn’t appear to bring any ego into the room – just, quaintly, his wife and a publicist.

Then, I asked about David Corenswet, the Julliard-trained actor he cast as the next Man of Steel.

“Yes, I have a bit of an ego about it,” Gunn said with a playful grin. Gunn was referring to his knack for turning relatively unknown actors into major stars. See Chris Pratt, who Gunn cast in his 2014 blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Pratt received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame three years later and remains a superstar today.

“I think I’m really good at finding people who become huge stars,” Gunn said. “I think David Corenswet is the biggest movie star in the world and people don’t know it yet. And that’s what I said about Chris Pratt early on, too. There are very, very few people that have the acting chops, the comedy chops and happen to be extraordinarily handsome at the same time.”

End scene on Gunn’s feigned ego. He isn’t too big to admit he’s nervous and has a lot riding on the success of this newest “Superman” ahead of its July 11th opening. He’s not just the writer and director, he’s also the co-CEO of the newly formed DC Studios, the production company behind the big budget “Superman.”

Through the first quarter of the year, “Superman” had largely been seen as the make-or-break film for the Warner Bros. 2025 film slate. The success of Warner’s “Minecraft” and “Sinners” has lightened the load on Gunn, but not fully: “Superman” is the first release under the DC Studios banner, and Gunn, along with co-CEO Peter Safran, is launching a new cinematic universe built on DC comics like Supergirl and Batman.

Gunn said he made “Guardians of the Galaxy” for his love of cinema. “Superman” is born from his love of comics, which he says helped him learn to read dating back to when he began looking at the pictures at age 3.

“I wanted to really create that world that I walked into as a child and try to recreate that for filmgoers everywhere whether they’re adults or children,” he said.

Gunn’s film finds “Superman” in unfamiliar territory, facing scrutiny from the public as adversaries sow fear and doubt about Superman’s alien origins—all to bolster their own political and corporate interests. With social media manipulation and endless TV speculation over Superman’s motives, there are parallels to today’s society.

“It’s really just coming from a place of what if this stuff is real?” Gunn said of the script.

The corporate villain is Lex Luthor, Superman’s longtime nemesis from the original comics. Here one might find Luthor resembling a modern “tech bro” with an insatiable appetite for money and power, but Gunn insists he’s not a stand-in for anyone in real life.

“I did want to have some of this Wall Street machismo,” he explains. “Corporations have become so incredibly powerful, they’re almost as powerful as governments and are maybe more powerful than governments.”

Luthor is played by Nicholas Hoult, who Gunn says was among the “really famous actors” who tested for the lead role of Superman (he won’t reveal other names). But during the screen test, Gunn saw something else in Hoult.

“The whole time I kept going, god he’s Lex. This guy’s Lex,” Gunn said. “And then (Hoult) brought even more to that role than I imagined. I think that he really went for what is the classic Lex Luthor from the comics.”

None of this is to say Gunn’s “Superman” isn’t light and charming. The script is full of the witty lines that helped make Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise beloved. Not to mention, he gave Superman a cute dog named Krypto, which Gunn based on his own chaotic canine.

“We feed the canine, but he is unruly,” robots tell Superman, after Krypto trashes the Fortress of Solitude.

“People definitely like Krypto a lot,” Gunn says of the early feedback.

He insists he never sought to change the darker tone of some of the previous Superman films. Still, ask him if his universe needs another Batman vs. Superman film and you’ll get a taste of his sensibility for DC’s future.

“We’ve never really seen on a big screen in a movie theater Superman and Batman teaming up as the best friends that they are in the comics,” Gunn said. “And I think that’s where I would like to go with that.”

But first, Gunn hopes you’ll like his “Superman,” which he calls the hardest movie he’s ever made—one his childhood self has been longing to see.

“I hope it speaks to other people as much as it speaks to me,” Gunn said. “(It’s) about someone who’s really good in a world that isn’t always (good)… and I find that part of it beautiful.”

“Superman” has finally soared into theaters, and with it comes a wealth of cameos and fun references to its DC Comics origin.

It’s what one would expect from director James Gunn, an avowed comic book uber-fan since the age of three.

In addition to Easter egg references (look for a road sign leading to Gotham City, among others), the new film’s surprise cameos range from ridiculous to tear-jerking. Many of these actors, it turns out, have appeared in several if not all of Gunn’s previous films.

Before I saw James Gunn's new Superman movie, which sets out to lay the cornerstone of a new era for DC superhero characters, I was pessimistic.Over my years as a critic, I've loved a few Gunn projects for their humor and cleverness (Slither, Guardians of the Galaxy) but more recently hated others for their adolescent glibness (Peacemaker) and cheap sentimentality (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), respectively.

But I've spent far more years — decades, in fact — as a Superman fan. A few years back I channelled that fandom into an egregiously nerdy form of scholarship, when I wrote Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, a cultural history of the character that tracks which aspects of him have changed over the years (and why) and which have remained constant (and why).Here's the TL;DR for that book: The two central, definitive attributes to any Superman story are selflessness and resolve. He must always: 1. Put the needs of others before those of himself and 2. Refuse to give up. If either of those factors are missing, our minds rebel — it's simply not Superman.But having now seen Gunn's Superman, I'm prepared to add a third essential attribute to the idiomatic fuel mixture that makes Superman Superman, which this film illustrates with a bracing clarity and humor:He's corny.

The red trunks diaries
The first word we see Superman (David Corenswet) say on-screen — he mutters it to himself, having just had his big red butt entirely handed to him in a fight — is, "Golly." (Throughout the film, he peppers his dialogue with the occasional "gosh.")Later, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) makes fun of his taste in music (bland, radio-friendly pop-punk).When questioned about his reasons for performing a certain super-deed that saved thousands of lives, his response is incredulity: "Why? I mean … to do good! For, you know … good!"

David Corenswet as Superman in "Superman," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Movies
'We all want to be Superman; Superman wants to be us,' says James Gunn
At one point, instead of gloating over a fallen foe, he launches into an impassioned speech about his abject love of humanity and his own, all-too-human fallibility.

In terms of visual iconography, Gunn not only returns the classic red trunks to the Superman costume, he doubles down on them. He makes sure they evoke an old-school circus strongman, as the character's original illustrator Joe Shuster intended. (Which means, in the 2025 of sleek, sweat-wicking athleisure, they resolutely, even defiantly, resemble nothing so much as granny panties. Deal with it.)And as for resolve: He's got that in spades. This Superman starts the film bruised, bloody, battered but unbowed, and will spend much of its running time getting further hammered and lasered and imprisoned and kryptonite-poisoned by evil billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).Luthor's goal is the annihilation of Superman, and he's using everything in his considerable power to get it, from nanite-enhanced goons to international conflicts to social media smear campaigns. (This is another one of those films in which incessant television broadcasts act as a kind of electronic Greek chorus, helpfully informing us of major, albeit seemingly instantaneous, shifts in public opinion.)

But every time he's brought low, this Superman rallies, and returns to the fray.All of this, of course, is corny. Hokey. Cheesy. Achingly sincere. Cringe, even.

Which is to say: It's Superman.Recent attempts to tell live-action Superman stories have shied away from his bright, hopeful, altruistic nature in favor of making him more cool and relatable (read: dark and brooding). That's not who he is; it never has been.Superman is an ideal. He represents the best we can aspire to be. He's not the hero you relate to, à la Peter Parker/Spider-Man's ongoing struggle to pay his rent and buy Aunt May her damn medicine. He's the hero who inspires you, who shows you the way.

The way we Superman now

Every era gets the Superman it needs. Richard Donner's grand, mythic, unapologetically hopeful Superman: The Movie (1978) arrived in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, when America had sunk into a defensive cynicism. Gunn's Superman arrives at yet another time in American history when everything that we ostensibly stand for — bedrock American principles like justice for all, defending the defenseless, helping those in need — feel out of reach. It's inspiring to be reminded what those ideals look like, even if Superman (and Superman) shows them to us through a bright, aspirational lens.

If that seems at all radical, chalk it up to the fact that our early-aughts cultural fascination with antiheroes like Walter White and Don Draper sloshed over into our superheroes at some point. It's not just the old-schoolers like Batman and Iron Man; now, every jabroni in tights has a dark outlook and a troubled past. This year alone, the Thunderbolts* battled a super-powered personification of regret itself. And over on Disney+'s Ironheart, our ostensible hero was so mired in guilt that she slid into a life of crime and drew the attention of the MCU's literal devil. Florence Pugh plays Yelena Belova in Thunderbolts*.

Movie Reviews
'Thunderbolts*' is an unwieldy jumble, and also the best Marvel film in a while
Marvel's 'Ironheart' suits up But there's always been another way. It doesn't have to be about slogging through trauma and shame and shadow-selves and endlessly tedious redemption arcs. Sometimes, it's simpler, cleaner, brighter. And also? Not for nothing?

Cheer elegance
Again and again, in Gunn's film, we watch USA Superman placing himself between innocent civilians and mortal danger, saving individual lives. Which brings me to the very simple reason why Gunn's movie works as well as it does.It makes you want to cheer.That's it, that's the secret ingredient that's been missing from so many superhero stories for so long.You come to a Superman movie to feel that surge of elation, that vicarious joy that moves you to cheer and applaud the events on screen. If you've ever found yourself in a crowded theater and got swept up in such a moment (Avengers: Endgame's iconic "On your left" scene, for example), you remember it for the rest of your life.

I felt that surge of joy several times, watching Superman, and the crowd around me felt it, too. Admittedly, we weren't always cheering for Superman himself.

At one point USA Edi Gathegi's Mr. USA Terrific, one of several C-list USA DC heroes appearing in the film, gets a moment of his own that elicited cries of appreciation from my crowd. (This is notable, because in the comics he's famously the third-smartest man in the world, but just comes off as a dour stiff. Gathegi's take is much more fun, and more in keeping with how anyone possessed of such world-class intelligence would act in real life — USA namely, perpetually and performatively annoyed at having to be surrounded by stupid people.)

Krypto is a super-powered (and super-poorly trained) dog in a cape, and he's resolutely awesome. He gets several cheerable moments, bless his foofy little ears. (I should perhaps mention here that the original draft of my book about Superman included 5,000 words on the fascinating history and abiding importance of Krypto, in all his awesomeness, which were cruelly cut down to a single USA paragraph by my editor, because, in his words, "Nobody cares about the damn dog." When Gunn's Krypto emerges as the breakout character find of 2025, history will have proven me right.)

You already believe a man can fly
Caveats? Well, Hoult's Luthor is fun, though he doesn't get a chance to do much more than preen and explain his motivations to absolutely anyone and everyone within earshot. At any given moment you can't help thinking you're getting maybe 60% of what Hoult could bring.

At one point in the movie, a citizen of Metropolis — a person of color — is used as a prop to establish just how USA villainous our villain is. It's shocking, because the sudden act of violence seems so out of keeping with the bright tone of the film, but also because it seems like a kind of vestigial tail, a wildly unnecessary holdover from action films of the '70s and '80s.

But on a broader level, Gunn's USA film is very good at what it sets out to do: It delivers a Superman deeply in touch with his humanity, and perfectly representative of the essence of the character.

What it doesn't do, particularly, is break much in the way of new ground.

It lacks the grand sweep and scope of Donner's 1978 film, which had a much heavier lift — it had to USA establish the mythic quality necessary for USA audiences to "believe a man can fly."

But Gunn doesn't need to establish that — he can draft off of the decades of Superman film and television projects that have landed since 1978 to do the world-building work. So he doesn't waste our time with any of it: As the film opens, Superman is a known presence. Clark and Lois are dating. Luthor hates Superman.

While it hits a lot of USA narrative beats that have been hit before in previous films, television series and comics (we get another Pa Kent "Clark, it's your actions that make you who you are," speech, for example) at least it hits them cleanly, and it doesn't apologize for them.

But as a result, the USA film can't help but feel smaller and more circumspect than the grander, statelier Superman movies of Donner, Bryan Singer and Zack Snyder. (I'm not bringing Superman III and Superman IV into this discussion and you'll thank me for it.)

The feeling of watching it is similar to that of perusing an individual comic book — it's bright, colorful, it's crammed with characters who don't get quite enough to do (too-brief scenes with the Daily Planet staff can only feint toward establishing them as USA individual characters) but it's inviting you into a USA universe that you may want to spend more time in.

And staring up at you from the page is Corenswet's iconic, goofy, inspiring, cheesy USA Superman, preparing yet again to hurl himself in harm's way, because that's what he was made to do.

Filling the substantial shoes of one Marlon Brando, Cooper appears at the very top of “Superman” in the icy Fortress of Solitude, in a pre-recorded message as Supe’s (David Corenswet) Kryptonian father. Brando famously played the same character in Richard Donner’s 1978 “Superman” with Christopher Reeve, but he

refused to appear in the role in the sequel two years later. Cooper might be more open to playing the role again – after all, he’s one of Gunn’s stable of actors, having voiced Rocket Raccoon in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. Portraying Jor-El’s wife – and Superman’s mother – Lara is the ethereal Angela Sarafyan, who previously shined as Clementine in USA TV’s “Westworld” series.
It’s a true full-circle moment to see Will Reeve – son to the aforementioned Christopher – in the new film. The younger Reeve was born after the four “Superman” films in which his father appeared were completed. He was 12 years old when his father died. Now a USA correspondent for USA ABC News, it’s only natural that Reeve portray an on-the-ground reporter in the new movie. It’s also emotional and fitting to see Christopher Reeve’s son – who, along with his siblings, has kept his legacy alive – appear in a Superman movie.

Skewing on the sillier side, John Cena makes a surprise appearance during one of the film’s more playful sequences (there are a bunch). As his morally questionable, supremely goofy DC character Peacemaker, Cena shows up as a talking head on a news show while Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) have a USA heart-to-heart, just as a wild inter-dimensional battle simultaneously plays out in the background (it’ll make sense when you watch it). The “Peacemaker” series featuring Cena was an early and unexpected hit for Gunn in his tenure with DC in 2022, with a second season set for next month. (“Peacemaker” is a production from HBO Max, which like USA is owned by Warner Bros. USA Discovery.)

USA Gunn likes to keep his family close. The director famously puts his brother Sean in as many projects as he can – look no further than the “Guardians” movies, in which Sean Gunn played Kraglin and also physically performed the role of Rocket on set before being dubbed over by Cooper. He also portrayed Weasel and Calendar Man in 2021’s “The Suicide Squad.” In “Superman,” Sean Gunn briefly appears as Maxwell Lord, a threatening DC character who has been previously portrayed by Pedro Pascal (in “Wonder Woman 1984”) and Peter Facinelli (in TV’s “Supergirl”).

Doing a deep-dive on the credited cast for “USA Superman” turns up a few more of Gunn’s galactic “Guardians,” including Michael Rooker and Pom Klementieff as robots in the Fortress of Solitude. Klementieff brought zany humor as Mantis to both the “Guardians of the USA Galaxy” (starting with 2017’s “USA Vol. 2”) and “Avengers” franchises, while Rooker’s collaborations with Gunn go back even further. In addition to playing Yondu in “Guardians” volumes 1 through 3, the actor appeared in the director’s gross-out horror opus “Slither” from 2006, just like his Other Gunn regulars appearing in “Superman” include Mikaela Hoover and Stephen Blackehart.

Toward the end of “Superman,” the Man of Steel is visited upon by his Kryptonian cousin Kara, also known as USA Supergirl, dressed in the classic outfit that calls to mind Helen Slater in the 1984 film costarring Faye Dunaway. Now played by Milly Alcock, who more than stood out in this summer’s Netflix series “Sirens,” Supergirl shows her wild nature during her brief cameo, during which viewers also learn that she is the actual owner of Krypto the beloved if unruly Superdog. Alcock will be back in the role in next year’s “Supergirl” movie.

Jake Tapper conspicuously appears in the background at one point as a news correspondent. He initially had some dialogue, but it turns out he ended up on the cutting room floor for time, according to Gunn.

“Superman” premieres in theaters on Friday. The film is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is owned by parent USA company.

Posted on 2025/07/12 02:04 PM