“It’s a new beginning,” Rachel Brosnahan said to me this past Monday at a trailer preview event for Superman. Brosnahan, who plays Lois Lane in the highly anticipated film, was actually referring to my personal journey with DC, but her comment applies equally to the launch of the new DC Universe (“DCU”).
DC has been a life saving fandom throughout my life. As a teenager, after being rear-ended at a stop light, which left me with a minor concussion, I read DC’s New 52, Future’s End, and Earth 2 stories while in the waiting room for my physical therapy appointments. During a five-year period of debilitating headaches, and numerous doctor’s appointments, I then turned to DC television; watching the “Arrowverse” every single week until its conclusion just a few weeks ago with series finale of Superman and Lois. Now, with James Gunn and Peter Safran at the helm of DC Studios, it’s indeed a new beginning, as the DCU begins in earnest with Superman, which flies into theaters July 11, 2025 (the animated series Creature Commandos is technically the first official DCU entry).
On Monday, Warner Bros. Pictures held an exclusive teaser trailer preview event in anticipation of this new beginning. When the invitation for this event was sent my way, I felt like I too could fly. I still can’t fly, sadly, but meeting the cast of Superman and being present for one of the film’s first live conversations on a sunny day on the Warner Bros. Pictures lot comes pretty darn close. David Corenswet (Clark Kent/Superman), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor) were in attendance, and participated in a Q&A alongside director and DC Studios Co-CEO, James Gunn.
After screening the teaser trailer, Gunn and the cast sat down with us for a conversation moderated by Erik Davis. Davis admitted to Corenswet that he was trying to remain professional and not geek out. It felt as if the entire room was trying to do the same based on the cheers that erupted during the teaser trailer. When Krypto appeared on screen, someone let out a cheer so loud that it startled me, and in that moment, it fully sunk in just how excited people are for this Superman film.
This movie is about being good and being kind. The colorful nature of the Superman suit reflects those ideals and Superman’s own heart. Gunn shared that he initially did not like how colorful the suit is, but Corenswet changed his mind.
“David [Corenswet] goes, ‘He’s an alien from outer space who’s super powerful, who doesn’t want children to be afraid of him.’ And it touched me in the moment, and it touches me now as I say it. That is who he is, and that’s where the costume comes from, and that goes along with Jerry [Siegel] and Joe’s [Shuster] original vision with the, you know, harkening back to wrestlers in the circus and these other things,” Gunn said. “And that’s who Superman is. He has a reason for why his costume is so colorful. It’s because he doesn’t want to scare children. He’s got red beams that come out of his eyes. He can blow over things with his breath. You know, he wants to not be scary to children.”
During the Q&A, I had the opportunity to ask the second question, and I asked Corenswet what inspirations empowered his performance, from comics or real life. Corenswet began by saying that he read All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely at the recommendation of Gunn.
“…I think, well, there are interesting challenges with Clark. But it was, it was interesting having a silent version to look at. I hadn’t read so many Superman comics that I had a sense of all the different Clarks that have appeared in the comics. I knew the ones that had appeared on television and in films. It was great having a silent one and getting an impression from that. So I drew a lot from that, specifically for Clark,” Corenswet said.
Beyond the different characterizations of Superman and Clark in media, Corenswet’s performance was also inspired by his co-stars and by his own family.
“I also loosely stole some stuff from my brother-in-law, who’s 6′ 8″ and 270 pounds, and has the deepest voice, and is always in the way and always trying not to be that. For Clark, mostly I draw inspiration from the other actors and from James [Gunn]. I feel like I want to be living in the world that we’re living in,” Corenswet said. “And so it was when I started working with Rachel [Brosnahan] that I got clear about who Clark and who Superman was. And especially for Superman, you know, a hero is only as interesting or cool as the nemesis that they’re up against. And so standing eye-to-eye with Nick [Hoult] for the first time, I started to get clear about who, and I guess I was… uh yeah…I can’t really tell you. This is my first time dealing with a project where I have to be very careful about spoilers. But that’s where I start to get clear about who I am, because I see so clearly who they are.”
Undoubtedly, one of the biggest challenges for the entire Superman cast is that each of their respective characters have been so ubiquitous in pop culture for decades. Brosnahan was asked about the various iterations of her character Lois Lane over the years, and what is unique about her version.
“I have always been inspired by this character. She’s somebody who is ambitious and courageous and hungry and determined to get the greatest story almost at any cost. I’ve always loved this character, and was so excited by the opportunity to bring all of those things that have been true of her in every iteration,” Brosnahan said. “Also, one of the things I love about this character is that almost more than any other character in these comics and in the movies, she evolves to fit what it would mean to be an intrepid journalist of each generation or each decade that she’s presented in. So I think our challenge, and James [Gunn] and I started talking about this, kind of I think before the chemistry read, about how she might fit into the canon of today. Today, we’re living in a world where print journalism, to some, is perhaps an endangered art form, and she’s somebody who has dedicated her entire life to it. And then I think as far as what else is different, you’ll have to check out the movie to see, but I love that she’s somebody who doesn’t understand what the word “No” means, and it’s motivating for her. We definitely see that side of her in this film.”
As Corenswet said, a hero is often defined by their enemies. And there is perhaps no villain as well known in comics as Lex Luthor. Hoult talked about the uniqueness of a Luthor in James Gunn’s universe, and how his goal was to make Luthor’s motivations understandable.
“The thing about this Lex, I think, that was most exciting for me, was it being in a James Gunn universe. Like you said, they’re so emotionally raw and powerful, but huge in the scope of the world and what he’s creating. And I think with this Lex, I mean, obviously he’s smart and ruthless, and he has to outmaneuver Superman on certain levels because he can’t match him in others. But there’s also something about this character, hopefully, from my standpoint, where even though you perhaps don’t agree with his process, there’s an element where you can understand, on some levels, where he’s coming from and why perhaps what he’s pushing as his ideology is perhaps better for humanity,” Hoult said.
James Gunn shared his aspirations for the film, saying that at its core, Superman is a film that stays true to the character’s origins of being the symbol of a hero.
“I knew that I wanted to have a Superman that stayed true to his origins of being the ultimate good guy. And I think that it was a movie about kindness. It was a movie about being good,” Gunn said. “I remember talking to these guys when we had our cast dinner the night before we started shooting, or something like that. And I’m like, ‘At the end of the day this, you know, the world doesn’t always seem to have so much good in it, and this movie has to truly be that.’ And for it to truly be that means that we had to be good to each other, we had to be good to the crew, and then it had to be that authentically. And so for me, the movie is more about that than anything else.”
The trailer begins by showing a beat-up Superman who is the one needing to be rescued. It might be surprising to many that the first glimpse of Superman is one where he’s not the symbol of strength. Gunn emphasized that this film is not about Superman’s power.
“Because I think we’re seeing that from the beginning, we’re seeing a little bit of a different side of Superman than what we’ve seen, you know, normally on screen, and that this movie, at the end of the day, is not about power. This movie is about a loose term of the word, a ‘human being,’ and who he is as a person, and as a person just struggling with his day-to-day life, and we see a different aspect of him at the beginning. So I thought it was a cool place to start the trailer, and the movie, frankly.”
Gunn also talked about his approach to building the world around Superman and taking the full elements of the Superman mythology and blending them in a grounded way. While other iterations of the character may have tried to remove some of the more comic-based elements of Superman, Gunn embraced all of it, including his flying dog, Krypto.
“Superhero movies have taken these characters and said, ‘Okay, yeah, it’s, it’s Batman, but it’s not any of the other stuff. It’s Superman, but it’s not any of the other stuff…’ But in our world, we have uh…he lives in a world with superheroes. This is an alternative history, fantasy world where superheroes exist, but it’s also incredibly grounded,” Gunn said. “It’s about real people having real lives. There just happens to be meta-humans there. But Superman exists. He has friends who are other superheroes. He has people he doesn’t get along as well with who are other superheroes. He’s got a flying dog. He’s got [a] giant fortress that springs from the ground. He fights giant monsters, you know. He has a lot of the things that we love from the Superman comics and the Superman mythology that we haven’t been able to see as much in filmed media, and definitely haven’t been able to see in a grounded way, which is what I hope we’ve created.”
The main thing I took away from this event is that the cast and filmmakers are as grounded as the story they are aiming to tell with this film. At the post event reception, I got to talk with Corenswet and Brosnahan briefly. The pair were so kind and it really feels they were born to play these characters. I shared a small print of a painting I created with Corenswet, Brosnahan and Gunn and they seemed genuinely excited to see it. They’re big fans, just like all of us, and I can’t wait for this film to be released. A film about truth, justice, and a better tomorrow is just what this hurting world needs right now.
Jorgie is a Senior Writer at POC Culture and a passionate pop culture fan. Jorgie loves learning about visual effects, production, film, and art, and how they all come together to make epic films like Star Wars.
