An infant is rocketed to Earth from the doomed planet Krypton. A young boy makes a solemn vow to crusade against crime in the name of his murdered parents. A teenager is bitten by a radioactive spider and learns the tragic lesson that with great power must also come great responsibility. The origin stories of Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man are ingrained in cultural memory, having been told across decades of comic books, animated adaptations, and previous cinematic iterations, from 1978’s Superman to 1989’s Batman and 2002’s Spider-Man. That’s why James Gunn’s Superman movie isn’t an origin story, instead introducing an already established Man of Steel past his formative years.
“There are three things I don’t ever need to see again in a superhero movie,” Gunn, who also serves as co-chairman and CEO of DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, told The Times in an interview pegged to his franchise-starting reboot. “I don’t need to see pearls in a back alley when Batman’s parents are killed. I don’t need to see the radioactive spider biting Spider-Man. And I don’t need to see baby Kal coming from Krypton in a little baby rocket.”
He continued, “We have watched a million movies with characters who don’t have their upbringing explained, like when we see Good Night, and Good Luck we don’t need to know the early life of Edward R. Murrow to explain how he became a journalist. Who cares?”
While Gunn has revealed that Kal-El’s Kryptonian heritage (with an A-list cameo) informs his story — hence the film’s former title, Superman: Legacy — Gunn isn’t focusing on the genesis of his powers or Superman’s birthright. Instead, he’s picking up with a year three Superman in a world that has been aware of metahumans for over three centuries — and opts for a Star Wars-esque opening crawl to provide context for this new continuity.
Gunn previously suggested that upcoming Batman movie The Brave and the Bold would be centered on an experienced Dark Knight, unlike Christopher Nolan’s 2005 origin story Batman Begins or Matt Reeves’ 2022 reboot The Batman, about a caped crusader in his second year of costumed crime-fighting. Gunn’s comments further suggest there will be no flashbacks — as in Tim Burton’s Batman or Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — to the night Batman was born when a criminal stepped out of the shadows to gun down Bruce Wayne’s parents in an alley.
“We just start in the middle of the action,” Gunn told ComicBook and other outlets during a visit to the Superman set. “Superman already exists. Lois and Clark already know each other. Lex [Luthor] hates Superman’s guts from the beginning, although they don’t know each other personally. So we start right in the middle of the action. It takes place over a short amount of time.”
Superman — which stars David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, with Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher, María Gabriela de Faría as the Engineer, Wendell Pierce as The Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White, Neva Howell as Ma Kent, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Pa Kent, Sean Gunn as Maxwell Lord, and Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr. — opens only in theaters July 11.
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