Look up…
As the DCEU suits up for a brand new iteration under the guidance of director James Gunn, our first taste will fly into theatres from July 2025 in the form of Superman.
Embodied by rising star David Corenswet, the Man of Steel will be reintroduced to fans and newcomers alike, and the first look has arrived in the form of an enticing teaser that showcases all the heart, humour, action and Krypto we’ve come to expect from one of the superhero genre’s most recognisable symbols.
As the teaser trailer arrives online, The AU Review’s Peter Gray was one of only 50 journalists in the world to be invited to preview the footage, as well as join director Gunn at an exclusive Q&A, where he revealed all (well, as much as he could) about what audiences can expect from next year’s super flick!
Superman is a symbol of love
When asked what audiences can expect from the new Superman, Gunn stressed he’s a character about “the compassion of the human spirit.”
“A Superman who is about kindness, love and compassion, while also being a very strong character. He’s the best of humanity, even though he’s an alien from outer space.”
David Corenswet is the perfect “boy scout” to play him
Gunn beamed when describing working with actor David Corenswet, detailing him as someone with “The perfect boy scout quality that Superman has,” and, despite his good looks, “No arrogance or ego.”
“(He’s) just one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. Incredibly nuanced, incredibly questioning all the time, trying to figure out how can he give his best performance. And there’s never a take where I look at after the dailies, where I go he isn’t fully authentically Superman. He is Superman every moment he’s in the movie.”
Shoulder the vulnerability
When extending his thoughts on Corenswet, Gunn had two very specific details in what the actor needed to work on once he won the role.
“I think that he was willing to do anything for this role in terms of preparation. Learning, reading the comics, and working out. I said to David, when he got hired after a very, very long and arduous audition process in which hundreds and hundreds of people auditioned for the role of Clark Kent/Superman, “You’ve got to work on two things. You got to work on your shoulders, and you’ve got to work on your vulnerability.” And those were two things that he then spent the next six months on, getting bigger and elements of being vulnerable on screen, which I think was a little bit more difficult for him, as it is difficult also for Superman.”
The movie is about Clark Kent’s humanity
Furthering that vulnerability of the character, which Gunn extended his thoughts on, saying that “the traditional values” of the character will be manifested in different ways in this film, Superman will be largely based around Clark Kent’s humanity.
“Yes, he’s an alien from another planet who’s super powerful, but he’s also deeply, deeply human. He has emotions and feelings, and he wakes up every day and tried to make the best choices he can. And sometimes he fails. That’s what this movie is about. This is about a complex character, and it’s the thing that audiences are going to be completely surprised by.”
One of the things we don’t see in the trailer that strengthens this theme of Clark’s humanity is the complex relationship between himself and Lois, and between Clark and Lex Luthor.
“How they interact and the different values they have. It strengthens each other and it makes the other weaker.”
Lex Luthor is Superman’s equal…maybe more than we know
Following on from the mention of Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Gunn elaborated on the characterisation of super villain here, saying that he’s “A bad guy, but has his reasons for his thinking.”
“One of the things that was really important to me was to make a Lex Luthor who was absolutely Superman’s equal. Maybe more than you know. Lex is scary. And it’s not just because he’s a bad guy. There’s a lot of ideological things about what Superman represents verses what (Lex) represents as the world’s most intelligent man.”
When describing such ideologies between the two of them and how they look at the world, Gunn continued: “One of whom is very generous in their point of view, which is Superman, and one of them is not, which is Lex. But also Lex’s intelligence makes him incredibly dangerous to Superman, and when you’re willing to fight, there are no rules.”
The iconic score is back…remixed!
No, your ears are not deceiving you, John Williams‘ classic score from Richard Donner’s 1978 original is heard in the teaser trailer, but not quite as we know it.
“John Murphy composed the score. He’s an incredibly talented guy who I love working with. As soon as I finished the script, he was one of the first people I gave the script to. I said that I did want to use the classic Williams score, but I wanted him to mutate it and turn it into his own thing that’ll represent this film and this story.”
Gunn continued to describe the score as “powerful” and “slightly melancholy”, which perfectly encapsulated the emotional story he was telling. “Music is always very important to me, but I’ve used a lot of pop songs throughout (other) movies, and this wasn’t the case for Superman. This is basically about the score and it has an incredibly important role in the film.”
Superman’s best friend
If Superman is saving everyone, who saves Superman? Krypto, of course.
Superman’s four-legged friend finally gets a big screen iteration, and Gunn based him off someone very close to home: His own dog, Ozu.
“(In the teaser) you see a simple version of (Superman’s) relationship with Krypto. As you see the movie, you’ll realise the relationship with Krypto is much more complicated. Krypto is based on my dog, Ozu, who is the world’s worst dog. He’s destroyed my entire house. We rescued him. He was raised in a woman’s backyard, who was raising 60 dogs in a small yard in a poor section of Los Angeles, and he had never known humans, so he was scared of me. He liked my other dog a lot, so would follow her, and then just destroyed all my stuff. Through Kyrpto we started to see this very different version of Superman, and it was very creatively invigorating to get my terrible dog (in the film).”
The ultimate outsider
When asked about his previous films detailing outsider characters, Gunn spoke of how Superman, despite his importance, is very much an outsider, and he was excited to explore that, with the surprising help of Corenswet.
“There was a time when I was developing the costume, and David walked in with our costume designer, and we were going back on the red trunks. I even talked to Zack Snyder about it, and he even said that he tried a billion versions and felt like he never got there. The trunks were very colorful. I asked David how he felt about the colour, and he’s like, “I love it.” He saw that Superman was an alien from outer space who can fly and lift buildings and shoot laser beams out of his eyes. He didn’t want kids to be afraid of him. And I started seeing the character in a new way. And it also showed me how David was really taking everything, every moment, very seriously. He wants to not be scary to kids, and that was a pretty cool way to look at it. I’ve kept that in mind for the character ever since that moment.”
Kill your darlings…or your ending
A moment that had the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker careful in how much he revealed came when he was asked about “killing his darlings”, and if there was a moment that he had to sacrifice something of importance during the making, leading Gunn to mention an ending we may never see.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, I don’t have many emotions about killing my darlings, but at one point I had a very different ending that I wrote in the script. I told my wife about the ending after the first draft, and I asked “What if this happens?” It was very different, and maybe one day I’ll be able to share that. I’m sure you’ll all remind me to do that. But that was hard. That ending was a lot different than the one we get.”
Lois Lane is a force to be reckoned with
The Daily Planet’s most valuable asset couldn’t be missed when talking about the film, with Gunn describing her as “a force to be reckoned with” as a journalist of the highest order.
“She believes in the truth at almost any price. One of the things I love about the original Donner film is the romance between Lois and Superman. It was really beautiful. But it was also, in a way, a little bit of Lois going gaga over Superman, right? I wanted to see (here) why does Superman love Lois so much?”
And a lot of that came down to chemistry reads between Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan.
“We did chemistry reads, and David and Rachel got these roles, not just because they were just individually great, but together as a couple, they just bounced off each other in an incredibly dynamic way. From the beginning you start to see why she is as strong a force as Superman, just in a different way. And it’s why someone as good looking and as powerful as Superman would be in love with her. He’s the lucky one at the end of the day.”
Superman’s coming home
As the event came to a close, Gunn finished on what he’s most excited for audiences to discover as they watch the teaser – which he stressed is very much a tease and not the full trailer.
“I’m excited for people to see all the different elements of the teaser trailer. The big silver-age science-fiction stuff. The romance. The action beats. Krypto. And there’s only one potent line in the trailer, to me, that moves me, and that’s when Superman says “Krypto, take me home!” And then Krypto starts dragging Superman home. That, at the end of the day, is what this is all about. It’s about bringing the innate goodness of Superman home. Bringing this character home. Bringing our battered world to a brighter place of healing. Hopefully Superman can be a symbol of that as well. I think it’s the right time for this movie.”
Superman is screening in Australian theatres from July 10th, 2025.
