James Gunn shared what he changed about ’Superman’ to make him more relatable to fans and meet the expectations from the new DC Universe during a recent chat with Screen Brief.
“The biggest challenge is that everyone in the world knows who Superman is and where he came from. Some of that’s a benefit, like we don’t go into origin stories in this. Practically everybody knows that Clark Kent came here in a rocket as a baby, sent by his Kryptonian parents, and a farm-couple adopted him. So, we don’t have to go through all that. That’s a benefit, in a way,” he said.
“But also, so many people in this world are so intimately attached to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman—The Big Three. They have specific ideas about what that character is to them.”
The director noted fan demands to bring out Superman’s more human side and compared the Kryptonian to Batman, explaining, “Most people have come up to me and said, ’I never really related to Superman because he’s just too powerful. I relate to Batman because he’s like the underdog.’”
Underlining that for this reason, most people can bond with Batman but not Superman, Gunn continued, “So, that’s something I took into account from the beginning, that a lot of people don’t relate to him. I think it’s a little bit to do with how we see him at the beginning of the trailer, and the beginning of the movie, too.”
The new ’Superman’ trailer presented the hero bleeding in snow as a sign of his difference from past portrayals. That doesn’t mean the character’s core elements are completely overlooked, though.
“And other people like Superman because he can punch planets in-half,” Gunn added. “So, you’ve got to deal with all these different people who have different ideas of what Superman is supposed to be. And you have to deal with all of them and hopefully people are able to go and say, ’Well, okay, I like my idea what Superman is. Let’s see what this idea of Superman is. Let’s, let’s sit down for two hours and watch this movie and see what it is.’”
“That’s what you’ve got to do with the DCU, because things are going to keep changing and evolving. A lot of people keep telling me, ’Oh my god, you made this trailer just for me! I can’t believe it!’ And you know, other people are going to feel differently about it, but they can still enjoy the story and enjoy how our view of Superman is, or whatever other DC character there is.”
’Superman’ will hit theaters on July 11, 2025. ’Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’ and ’Clayface’ will follow in 2026, with more projects planned for the future.
Looking ahead, Batman will return in ’The Brave and the Bold’ with a new actor, while Wonder Woman is expected back later. Before her return, the series ’Paradise Lost’ will explore the political dynamics on Themyscira years before her birth.
