As you’ve probably heard, the red, yellow and blue smoke as gone up: Hollywood has appointed its new Superman and Lois Lane. Kal-El will be played by David Corenswet, from Pearl and Netflix’s The Politician, while The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan will be Lois. They’re both interesting, vital picks – for Corenswet in particular, this will likely be the first time many have come across him – and both come to their roles free of much baggage. Given how much of it Superman has had to carry after a decade of back-and-forth in the DCEU, that might be the best thing possible for 2025’s reboot Superman: Legacy.
DC head honcho James Gunn – who’s also written and will direct Legacy – told Variety earlier this year that his film would be about “Superman’s heritage”, exploring “how both his aristocratic Kryptonian parents and his Kansas farmer parents inform who he is and the choices he makes”. The beloved 2005 comic series All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison is being touted as a keystone text – Gunn tweeted in February that it was one of four DC comic runs which were informing his thinking for his new universe, adding that: “That doesn't mean we're adapting all these comics, but that the feel, the look, or the tone of them are touchstones for our team.” All of this feels like very good news.
And it feels like a very shallow point to make but it’s more important than anyone would admit: Corenswet just looks right. He looks like Superman. The jawline, the kiss-curl, the browline so perfectly straight it looks like it’s been set with a spirit level. Add to that his look in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood series, which gave him a Golden Age glow and some lovely camp collar shirts, and it’s no wonder he was such a popular fancast. Meanwhile, anyone who saw Mrs. Maisel knows Brosnahan’s got more than enough about her to make hers a Lois for the ages too. She’s funny, she’s got grit, and she knows who she is – all essential elements of Lois Lane. You can see how this Superman and this Lois would be bang into each other.
Hopefully, Corenswet’s course runs smoother than Henry Cavill’s. The Snyder-verse has its fans – and while Cavill was well-cast as Superman, it feels like the biggest pop cultural moments his incarnation provided in the last decade were the CGI non-moustache of Justice League, and the much-ridiculed “Martha!” conclusion of Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice. It wasn’t that Superman himself was a joke per se; more that the external mess consuming the DCEU dwarfed whatever was happening on screen. Those movies made a fair amount of money. But they were so very, very long, and so very, very captured by barneys within the DC fandom that it’s not surprising that casual viewers were less interested. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe was flying high, buoyed by colour and humour, Cavill’s Superman felt dragged down by the weight of the DCEU. A bleak, grounded version of Superman who was arrested by military police in 2013’s Man Of Steel was the polar opposite of, say, Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy from the following year.
The DCEU has dabbled in Marvel-ish fun here and there, but picking Corenswet feels a clear decision for the new DCU to take a third way. Back in 2019, Corenswet told Entertainment Weekly about his “pie in the sky” ambition to play Superman. “I would love to see somebody do an upbeat, throwback [Superman],” he said. “I love the Henry Cavill dark and gritty take, but I would love to see the next one be very bright and optimistic.”
That seems to be where Superman: Legacy will likely launch itself. The Christopher Reeve-era Superman movies remain wondrous and unashamedly uplifting; Reeve himself is a Superman with the kind of soulful warmth, clear-eyed certainty, and laser-cut jawline to make you believe a man could fly. It’s a mark of how reverently Reeves is regarded within the DC-verse that it was – SPOILER ALERT! – his brief CG-cameo in The Flash which specifically caused the most indignation. Given Gunn’s well-proven knack for locating authentically moving moments within even the most chaotic, wisecracking stories, he seems a good choice to reconnect Superman: Legacy to Richard Donner’s 1978 film. (Side note: how many times would you need to fly backwards around the world to get back to 1978?)
“He’s somebody who is an outsider who feels like an alien, but also the ultimate insider, because he’s fucking Superman. And that’s kind of like what I feel like,” Gunn has said. His approach represents a clean break from the murky, morally tortured world in which Cavill’s Superman was forced to mope. Gunn’s tweet about Corenswet and Brosnahan – “They are not only both incredible actors, but also wonderful people” – adds to the general vibe of light and positivity already radiating from Superman: Legacy.
All of which feels like the right direction to launch into. The DCEU era closed with The Flash, and while there were moments of fun along the way, that ‘continuity’ often felt at war with itself, before eventually fizzling out. Somewhere along the line, the franchise became its own kryptonite.
Superman: Legacy can, Kal-El willing, change that. Channeling Morrison’s All-Star Superman should be a throwing-open of the curtains – new dawn, new day, new DC. It’s a riot, set outside the usual continuity and featuring a kind of greatest hits of Superman bad guys – Lex Luthor, Samson, Atlas, Parasite – as well as a brief outing for Lois as Superwoman. The art style is bright and poppy. Rather than trying to rewrite anything, all the previous Superman continuities are made canon. It all counts. Everyone’s welcome. It feels like a perfect way of pushing away from the murk and grouchiness of the DCEU era, relighting enthusiasm for Superman within the fandom and moviegoers at large, and opening a window into a multiverse all at once.
At the heart of it all will be Corenswet. A little like Superman himself, right now he’s someone you can project nearly anything you want onto. Most of all, he’s a symbol of that most Superman-ish of ideas: hope. “He's been done right and he's been done wrong,” Corenswet said of Superman in 2019. “It's time for another right one.” Let’s fly.