In Superman, writer-director James Gunn wanted to emphasize the “man” in the Man of Steel. “I’m as human as anyone,” Superman (David Corenswet) retorts after Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) derogatorily refers to the Kryptonian as an alien. “I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time — but that’s being human.”
“I didn’t want a Superman who was perfect in any way. Nobody’s perfect,” Gunn said on the Picturehouse podcast. “Even Superman loses his temper, even Superman throws the desk across the room with Lex.”
Gunn is referring to the scene in which Superman storms into LuthorCorp and confronts Luthor, who took Supergirl’s (Milly Alcock) dog Krypto from the Fortress of Solitude and massacred his Superman robots. Gunn admitted that’s something Superman “probably shouldn’t have done,” but defended the outburst, adding, “I like that even the things that he does that are imperfect are because of the goodness and pureness of his heart.”
Another controversial scene is the moment Superman loses his temper during an on-the-record interview with girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). As the intrepid Daily Planet reporter presses Superman over his unilateral decision to insert himself into the ongoing conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur, he defends his actions, shouting, “People were going to die!”
“I was really excited with the interview scene of Clark and Lois actually talking about their real lives and the way they approach the world, and what their morals are, and what their differences are, and really seeing those in a human way,” Gunn said. “Not taking anything away from who Superman is as an icon, just getting to know him from a different point of view. That’s exciting and fun to me.”
Gunn has been upfront about having his Superman be more emotionally and physically vulnerable. In fact, the movie opens minutes after Superman lost his first fight — to the Hammer of Boravia, secretly Luthor’s imperfect Superman clone, Ultraman — and picks up with a bloodied Superman plummeting into the snow outside the Fortress of Solitude.
“I think that one of the things early on that I thought of was just the idea of Superman with a little bit of blood coming out of his mouth,” Gunn said. “I was like, ‘That’s an image we haven’t really focused on before,’ and I wanted to see that.”
DC Studios’ Superman is now playing only in theaters.
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