David Corenswet looks like just about any of Hollywood’s past Supermen in the right light. In particular, he often gets the Henry Cavill comparison. And it’s easy to see how merely a thin layer of finely shaped scruff alone highlights his dimples and pronounced jawline to resemble the last cinematic incarnation of DC’s Clark Kent/Kal-El, defined by Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.

At Entertainment Weekly‘s cover shoot at East End Studios in Glendale, Calif., the 6-foot-4 Corenswet certainly looks the part in an electric blue suit. He towers over Kristen Shaw, the groomer tasked with “curl duty” — making sure his classic Clark Kent hair curl remains properly perky for the cameras. The formerly svelte star of Hollywood and The Politician also now has a comparable frame to Cavill, the product of hitting the gym for months before shooting his leading role in James Gunn’s Superman (out July 11), which marks a fresh start for DC’s Kryptonian strongman. 

“I’ve also got a lot of physical comparisons to Tom Welling, who played Superman and Clark Kent on Smallville,” Corenswet admits. “When I was growing up, he was the Superman who was on TV every week. I think, to one extent or another, all of the Superman actors…There’s some Venn diagram of our physical characteristics, which makes sense for a superhero who is classically the one who doesn’t wear a mask.”

Christopher Reeve, however, is the likeness that most comes to mind on this particular beaming afternoon on the last Saturday in March. Standing next to his Lois Lane counterpart, Rachel Brosnahan, joking how they’ll need to “build a trench” so he can fit into camera frame with the 5-foot-3 Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Emmy winner, Corenswet searches for the right music to set the tone for the shoot. He likes jazz, but not just any jazz, at least not for this occasion. Mostly “upbeat instrumental jazz,” he offers, the stuff you’d find in the Great American Songbook. 

Gunn, the film’s writer/director and the co-head of DC Studios, prefers the sound of rock band Foxy Shazam. He playfully jabs at his Super star, calling him “the biggest square that ever lived.” Gunn shouts from across the room to whoever’s DJing the Spotify playlist, “He likes Dean Martin s—!”

The more they cycle through Oliver Nelson’s “March On, March On,” Jelly Roll Nelson’s “King Porter Stomp,” and Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” to find the perfect tune that gets him snapping to the beat, the more Corenswet exudes that classical “La La Land” Tinseltown image that Reeve rocked so well, beginning with 1978’s Superman. The actor finds his parallels to filmmaker Richard Donner’s muse “more odd and interesting” than the ones to Cavill or Welling. (Both Corenswet and Reeve have Juilliard and the Man of Steel on their résumés.) 

“I’ve listened to Christopher Reeve talk about how he felt going from theater and a classical training to wearing tights on screen,” he says. “It’s harder in some ways to play Superman and then to do a great play or a dramatic film, because as an actor, you feel like the seriousness of the work somehow supports you. It allows the whole thing to feel more grounded. There is a unique challenge to playing a guy who wears his underwear on the outside and can fly. I think I had the great fortune of getting a little bit of both. I was definitely on team trunks-on-the-outside for this iteration of Superman, but I certainly felt James took the work very seriously.”

Despite this amalgamation of Supermen from yesteryears, global audiences have already started to see Corenswet as the Superman of tomorrow, as he leads the first theatrical film for a new dawn in the superhero franchise. When Gunn was hired to take the helm of DC Studios with his longtime collaborator Peter Safran (Safran handles more of the business side, while Gunn shepherds the creative), this dynamic duo gave the brand a reset — building a new DC universe from the ground up that could rival, say, Gunn’s previous collaborators at Marvel, with a series of interconnected films and TV shows for years to come.

Last year’s Creature Commandos on Max (soon to be renamed HBO Max) was technically the first project within this initial phase of the new DCU, which has been dubbed “Gods and Monsters.” But Gunn says the animated series is not necessarily crucial to this larger storytelling plan. The events of Superman, as well as this fall’s Peacemaker season 2, however, are “both pretty important in terms of getting to the bigger story,” he says.

Star crossed

Warner Bros. initially offered Gunn Superman prior to directing 2021’s The Suicide Squad, back in the previous era of DC storytelling. Even then, before plans were firmly in place, the studio wanted a new actor to play Superman after Cavill, “so it was even more messy than it is now,” Gunn says. But more importantly, he adds, “I didn’t have that special idea of what that [film] would be.”

He does now.

“Over the years, the stories that I’ve told have gotten more…how to say it…less in your face,” explains the director, who made a name for himself with indie horror-comedy Slither (2006) and a dark vision of masked heroes with Super (2010) before joining Marvel to make the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. “I wanted to tell the story about someone who was truly good in a world that doesn’t value goodness, in a world that makes fun of basic kindness and basic human values. The fact that he can fly and lift buildings and shoot laser beams out of his eyes was really secondary to who he was as a person and what he stood for.”

The first bit of Superman that Brosnahan shot as ace Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane was a sequence she and Corenswet knew intimately, a scene they performed for the chemistry tests that landed them the parts. In the summer of 2023, it was down to three actors for each role: Bridgerton‘s Phoebe Dynevor and Sex Education‘s Emma Mackey were in the running with Brosnahan, while British stars Tom Brittney (Greyhound) and Nicholas Hoult (who would instead land the role of Superman’s archvillain Lex Luthor) were up for the titular lead. 

It’s a meaty scene, about 10-12 pages worth of script, in which Lois arrives at her apartment to find her boyfriend, Clark Kent, attempting (rather poorly) to cook an anniversary meal. Their playful banter highlights their romantic chemistry, but also how they challenge each other.

“We’re meeting them at a point where they’ve been together for about three months,” Brosnahan notes, “which is the point in a relationship where you’re like, Was this a really great fling or is this more serious, possibly forever?”

Lois gives Clark grief for the ethical breaches of his recent Daily Planet pieces — exclusive interviews he “conducted” with Superman, though they both know full well that Clark is Superman. So he offers her an alternative: She can interview him as the Man of Steel instead. What he thinks might be a fun bonding moment backfires spectacularly as Lois, who comes alive when presented with a juicy story, jumps at the chance to ask Superman hard-hitting questions on the record. 

Brosnahan felt this exchange was “foundational” to these characters.

“It’s a combination of them both clicking into, in some ways, their super alter egos,” she explains, “but that’s also juxtaposed with their great love for each other… I don’t know if she would call it that quite yet, but they care about each other. When you start doing an interview, this is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lois Lane, and he’s Superman, who’s also the subject of this interview. They both feel very strongly about the stance that they’re taking in that scene. It’s one of the things that I love about their love story. While they have totally opposite worldviews, they complete each other, and they kind of need each other.”

“This isn’t like the interview in the Donner movie where Lois doesn’t know that he’s Clark,” Corenswet says, referring to a scene from the Reeve-led classic with Margot Kidder. “Lois knows everything about him, so he’s in a very vulnerable position. He’s madly in love with this woman and desperately wants her to understand him and appreciate him and love him back.”

In this world, humanity has been clued into the existence of metahumans (i.e., super-powered individuals) for 300 years, Gunn reveals. (“If you saw a shark-man walking down the street, you’d probably vomit and s— yourself to death,” he says. “If they saw one, it would be more like if you saw Paul McCartney on the sidewalk in New York.”)

It’s a world that includes the Justice Gang, a super-trio comprised of Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (The Last of Us‘ Isabela Merced), Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (The Rookie‘s Nathan Fillion), and Mister Terrific/Michael Holt (The Harder They Fall‘s Edi Gathegi). But they went corporate. Maxwell Lord (played by Gunn’s brother, Sean, of the Guardians of the Galaxy films), the head of LordTech and one of multiple tech billionaires in this world, is their backer. (“They’re good. They just are not saintly,” Gunn says of the team.) 

It’s also a world that often has a problem with someone like Superman. He’s virtually all-powerful, so it’s a challenge to physically stop him. The combination of his upbringing in rural town Smallville and the dying wish of his Kryptonian parents to safeguard humanity forms Clark’s firm ideals about bettering civilization. No corporation or government can taint them, which leads us to why Lois is eager to grill Superman. In the film, he decides to save civilians caught in a conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur (fictional nations from DC comics), which causes an international incident and earns him the ire of a White House that sees Superman as an American asset gone rogue.

“She’s ambitious and hungry,” Brosnahan comments. “And I think, in that moment, she sees an opportunity for a front-page story.”

In many ways, this apartment scene, where Clark/Kal-El defends those ideals to Lois, defines this generation’s incarnations of these characters. While the titan from Krypton can often seem stoic and deified, Corenswet’s Kal-El can be quite passionate about his views and express them loudly. 

“I had the same ideas about Superman, that he’s quite reserved and has ultimate control over his emotions and his reactions to things,” Corenswet says. “I was very excited when James said all of that is true about Superman, but we get to meet him in this moment where those things are least true. That’s where he’s a little bit of Superman, he’s a little bit of Clark — because the only other person in the room knows who he is and holds all the cards.”

Brosnahan describes Lois as “someone who questions everything and everyone by nature,” while Clark/Superman “sees the beauty in people first and trusts implicitly…. That sometimes puts them at odds with each other about the way they should approach the world.”

It’s only in his scenes with his costars, particularly Brosnahan, that Corenswet truly finds the specifics of his character. There are the main Superman and Clark Kent personas that he shows the public. But, Corenswet explains, “We also had this third character, of who Clark is when he’s in a room with somebody who knows both sides of him. He’s not really playing the character of Superman, but he’s also not really playing the role of Clark, either. It’s a personality that only comes out with his parents [Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell play Jonathan and Martha Kent] and with Lois, once she really gets to know everything about him.”

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Gunn cast Corenswet and Brosnahan together.

“We mixed and matched these different actors and actresses to find out not only who was the best Clark and who was the best Lois, but who was the best ‘Clois,’ who was the best together,” he says. “I do think that David was the best Clark, Rachel was the best Lois, but they also had the most chemistry together.”

Brosnahan saw the script as “a road map,” but then she went off to interview journalists covering different fields to get more specifics. She spoke to them a lot about vices. In the source material, Lois is historically a smoker, which the team chose not to depict in this film. This apartment scene offers more clues to what the actress discovered instead. Keen eyes will note an abundance of instant ramen noodles, nutrition bars, and candy strewn about the space. 

“I wanted her apartment to be filled with grab-and-go snacks,” Brosnahan says. “I think she’s somebody who’s always so preoccupied with work that I’m not sure she ever sits down and eats a full meal.”

Another tip she picked up from real-world press: pens. Lois always has multiple pens on her in case one should fail in her moment of diligent note-taking.

“It wasn’t a conscious choice, but this Lois became a pen chewer,” she says. “There’s probably an unfortunate amount of pen-chewing in this movie.”

Tech bro baddie

So much of any generation’s Superman movie is defined by the pairing of the savior from Krypton and his Earth-bound nemesis, Lex Luthor. Gene Hackman and Christopher Reeve, Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling, Kevin Spacey and Brandon Routh, Jesse Eisenberg and Henry Cavill, and now Nicholas Hoult and David Corenswet. 

“He’s a very sweet and gentle man, but he’s a very strong and imposing presence as an actor,” Corenswet says of Hoult. “He has a poise and a confidence that shows up immediately when work begins. That was really helpful, as Superman, having a very believable and imposing villain who you really feel like from day one has your number and knows what you’re up to and already has a strategy to thwart you.”

The entire cast has been vocal about the inspiration they took from All-Star Superman, the 12-issue comic penned by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. Hoult points to a specific panel from that arc that helped define the particular shades of his Luthor. Superman, as Clark, visits the mastermind in jail, where he’s spent all his time bulking up in the gym.

“Feel that, Kent?” Luthor asks on the page. “Real muscles. Not like his…. It’s easy to be strong when you just happen to have come from the planet Krypton! This takes hard work.”

“That kind of captures, in my mind, the element of Lex,” Hoult says. “He’s worked hard and diligently for so many years for all these things, to be admired and to be adored. Then suddenly Superman’s turned up and he’s all the things that he aims to be himself in some ways, but he doesn’t have to work hard for it. So I’m like, What if this Lex is someone who is physically strong and is an alpha, or seemingly in that sense? Instantly, even in the prep phase, it was like, I’m going to get in the gym and I’m going to be as strong as I possibly ever can be by the time we start shooting.”

“Lex is connected to everything,” Gunn says of the role. “There’s nothing bad happening in Metropolis during this movie that doesn’t have some connection to Lex Luthor.”

In this particular vision of the DC world, Luthor is the head of tech company LuthorCorp (not LexCorp, as is more traditional). Gunn has repeatedly described the character as a sorcerer of science, capable of engineering the most fantastical gadgets and technology to achieve his goals…which leads us to the figures in his orbit, specifically the Engineer. 

Luthor is particular about who he surrounds himself with, including Angela Spica. In the comics, she’s depicted as a woman made of liquid machinery who can morph her body into different weapons. This incarnation of the character (played by María Gabriela de Faría) isn’t quite like that, instead using nanotechnology to alter herself. One sequence in the film — a sprawling battle that plays out in a baseball field and is orchestrated from afar by Luthor — sees Angela summon swarms of nanobots running throughout her body to create razor-sharp throwing discs. 

De Faría describes the Engineer of Superman as having “an edge” to her.

“I imagined that Lex and Angie had this work relationship where they respect each other so much,” she says. “Angela highly believes in Lex’s idea of making the world a better place. She’s practically given her life to Lex for this greater good. But at the same time, I feel like there’s an element of an underlying relationship going on between the two of them. It’s not in the movie,” she clarifies, but de Faría remembers telling Gunn, “I feel like these guys f—!”

Luthor’s girlfriend is actually played by Sara Sampaio. Eve Teschmacher was a character originally created purely for Richard Donner’s Superman films, but here she’s big into social media. If a kaiju invades Metropolis, she’s likely in the background broadcasting the moment on Instagram Live.

“She’s just very for herself and her content,” Sampaio explains of Eve. “She’s sometimes out of notion with what’s happening or what’s appropriate, but she does have a heart. At the end of the day, everything is just so exciting for her. She’s just in a whole different world.”

There’s also a mysterious figure on Team Lex, called Ultra Man, whose entire body is covered by a black suit. Gunn continues this air of mystery, but the character has comparable abilities to Superman, including laser vision, strength, and flight (based on the trailers). When asked if Ultra Man is Luthor’s attempt to create his own Man of Steel, the filmmaker replies, “I think that’s close. Ultra Man is sort of Lex’s thug, and is pretty powerful.”

Not just with Luthor, but all the supporting characters in the film, Gunn wanted to create a world that wasn’t so strictly black and white.

“There are some characters that are really almost saintly, like Superman,” he elaborates. “There are some characters who are almost pretty terrible, like Lex Luthor. But I don’t think Lex is all bad, and I don’t think Superman is all good. All those people in between, the Guy Gardners and the Jimmy Olsens of the world, are even more complex in their moralities and what they think is okay.”

The DCU’s freshman class

“Okay, superstars. Come on in!” 

Back on the set of EW’s cover shoot, one of the many publicists in attendance signals the arrival of the rest of the Superman crowd. 

The three members of the Justice Gang (Merced, Fillion, and Gathegi) come pouring in the studio with Sampaio, de Faría, Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Beck Bennett (douchey Daily Planet sports reporter Steve Lombard), Mikaela Hoover (gossip columnist Cat Grant), and Skyler Gisondo (photographer Jimmy Olsen). Shouting “last looks” brings a stampede of hairstylists and makeup artists to the set for final touch-ups on each of their clients before the shoot can progress.

The mere size of the cast can feel overwhelming, something Gunn is keenly aware fans are criticizing online. (Though he’s admittedly less active on social media these days, Gunn is the only major studio head — and one of the few directors — who routinely interacts with the fandom online.) But rather than starting with one character, like Iron Man, and slowly expanding the universe to, say, everyone who appeared in that finale fight in Avengers: Endgame, Gunn aimed to capture from his own experience with the comics, immersing audiences in an already established world teeming with metahumans.

“I grew up reading DC and Marvel comics and having worlds and universes of superheroes who were interacting. I grew up watching Super Friends on Saturday mornings,” he says. “It’s a long time coming, to be able to be a part of a world in which superheroes are real. We don’t have to explain everyone away. There’s a little bit of magic in this world. There’s science beyond our understanding in this world. This is the kind of place where there’s an island full of dinosaurs that probably exists.” 

Fillion, who’s worked with Gunn as far back as Slither, pinpoints exactly what he enjoys about his pal’s take on Superman.

“There’s enough room in my heart for different ideas about the story of Superman,” he says, “but they all have one thing in common: What if there was a Kryptonian who came to Earth and was here with us? James’ take is: What if we lived in that world? It’s giant monsters, alien beings, interdimensional imps. There’s things happening that are reality for this world that we’re about to enter.”

From a writing standpoint, Gunn approached this DC pantheon practically — i.e., characters aren’t there just to be there. Take Metamorpho. In Lex’s pursuit to defeat Superman, he needs to pinpoint his vulnerabilities. One of them, as anyone can tell you, is kryptonite, the green mineral that can substantially weaken and even harm the bulletproof man. But where does Lex get it? Well, there’s this guy, Rex Mason, who can change his body mass into any natural element — including, you guessed it, kryptonite. He just needs a compelling enough reason to persuade Rex/Metamorpho to do this for him. 

There are certain clues within the world of Superman that hint at Metamorpho’s origin story, like the presence of Stagg Industries, a company that’s intertwined with the character in the comics. However, audiences will meet Metamorpho in the film “in full swing of who he is,” Carrigan notes. 

“You’re in a situation where it’s having to hurt someone, having to be an agent of the bad guy. And at the same time, there’s this struggle to want to be good,” the Barry alum continues of his character. “What the film does brilliantly is it puts you in this situation of, ‘Oh! He has no choice.’ He has to be doing this, and you see how painful it is.”

Gunn took a similar approach to the other figures of DC comics.

“I approached it like Clark Kent has his work friends and his play friends,” Gunn says. “I tend to think his work friends are the Justice Gang and his play friends are the Daily Planet gang. It was about telling the story of this person’s life and all the ways different people would be connected to him.”

The Justice Gang is a group of particularly colorful personalities. Fillion’s Guy Gardner, with a severe bowl cut, is the boldest by far. A member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic organization that polices various sectors of the cosmos, Guy wields a power ring, one of the mightiest objects in existence. Fueled by pure will, he can create just about anything he can imagine. When he touches down amid the Boravian conflict, a flick of his wrist conjures a giant green hand out of the ground to slap away a troupe of soldiers. 

“I love the idea that if you have an emergency and you need a Green Lantern — there’s thousands of them out there in the galaxy — this is the last one you want,” Fillion, who’s voiced multiple animated Lanterns throughout his career, says of this iteration. “What is very true about Guy Gardner, and what James understands very well, is you don’t have to be good and pure of heart to be a Green Lantern. You just have to be fearless. You just have to have the will. And Guy Gardner thinks he can take on Superman. That’s how fearless he is. No, you can’t take on Superman, dude.”

By comparison, Mister Terrific is “one of the most philosophically compelling heroes in DC,” in Gathegi’s opinion. As one of the most intelligent individuals on Earth, Michael Holt uses T-spheres, computerized floating orbs that respond to his voice, for a variety of purposes, including force field creation and hologram projection.

“He’s an atheist who believes in justice,” Gathegi describes his character. “He loses his wife, and he found meaning in knowledge. He saw that, while the universe might be cruel, intelligence, science, and innovation could make it better. He chose to become hope rather than succumbing to the despair of losing his wife.”

Merced’s Hawkgirl, who has wings sprouting from her back and a mace at the ready, is the warrior of the gang.

“You don’t really get to know her that well, and I think that’s good,” Merced says. “James isn’t showing all of his cards. He’s saving a lot of that.” 

For what? Other DC projects. Early trailers for Peacemaker season 2 reveal that Fillion and Merced will reprise their Superman roles alongside Sean Gunn’s Maxwell Lord for DC’s HBO series, for which James Gunn also serves as writer and showrunner.

“It was a bit more blatantly comical,” Merced says of inserting Hawkgirl into the Peacemaker environment. “It’s so f—ed up, but in a fun way.”

Fillion will then pop over to HBO’s Lanterns, which stars Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler as two other Earth-based Green Lanterns — John Stewart and Hal Jordan, respectively.

Gathegi also confirms that “[Superman] isn’t the only project that I’ll be in,” further illustrating Gunn and Safran’s mission to bring these actors back across various projects. 

Just about every cast member who speaks with EW is eager to answer the call, should another piece of the larger DC puzzle require their character. De Faría, for one, is well aware that the Engineer is a chief figure in the super team known as the Authority, which was already announced for a future movie adaptation.

“We did have a bit of that conversation about the future of the Engineer,” she says. “And the motherf—er” — she whispers the expletive — “was very secretive. He was like, ‘I have a great idea,’ and then [texted] a little emoji. Okay, so what is it?! And then he didn’t reply. He’s keeping me in the dark, but apparently he has a great idea of what to do with this character.”

When ‘Gods and Monsters’ converge

DC and Gunn fans are craving those specifics, but the future appears bright for Superman and his pals in the DCU. David Zaslav, the head of Warner Bros. Discovery, got up in front of investors earlier this year and declared the Man of Steel as crucial to the longevity of this franchise, as are Supergirl, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

Sitting in a large conference room — where he’s just about to watch the dailies from HBO’s Lanterns, which is halfway through filming — Gunn agrees with Zaslav’s statement, but provides one caveat: “I wouldn’t say only those four characters, but I would say that those four characters are incredibly important to us. Right now, I feel great about where two of those characters are, and then we’re dealing with the other two.”

Let’s start with Superman. The film hits theaters this July 11, and when asked if he’s already thinking of a sequel, Gunn replies, “What I’m working on is in some way…I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes. But is it a straight-up Superman sequel? I would not say necessarily.”

The next movie in the DCU after Superman will be Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, starring Milly Alcock as Kal-El’s cousin Kara Zor-El, on June 26, 2026. But what about Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince? Already announced for development are a film inspired by Grant Morrison’s Batman and Son comic, as well as a Paradise Island HBO series about the Amazons of Themyscira.

The latter is “slow moving, but it’s moving,” Gunn says, while confirming a Wonder Woman movie is “being written right now.”

Gunn hasn’t yet cast the DCU’s Batman or Wonder Woman, but notes that Robert Pattinson “is still there” in director Matt Reeves’ corner of the DC franchise. Although there have been many delays, Pattinson will return for The Batman Part II. Meanwhile, Reeves continues to build out his “Batman Epic Crime Saga,” a series of movies and shows, including The Penguin, that remain separate from the main DCU franchise’s story continu​​ity.

“What Matt’s doing is still really important, despite all stories to the contrary,” Gunn comments. “We’re supposed to see that script shortly, and I can’t wait.”

With all of these projects, Gunn is conscious not to give audiences homework, which is not dissimilar to Marvel’s current post-Endgame approach. You won’t have to watch Superman to enjoy Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, he says: “I am really trying to be careful that anybody can dip in and see the story that is up next and not feel like they’re missing information.”

That said, he does have a master plan in terms of the titles comprising Gods and Monsters.

“The most important thing is the specific stories, but there is also a much bigger story that we’re telling that will take a little bit longer to tell,” he remarks. “That’s sort of where my next couple of things are going to be.”

Could it involve something that does justice to this league of superheroes he’s assembling? Is Justice League on James Gunn’s mind?

“Of course, of course,” he responds. “But there is no Justice League in this world… not yet.”

Is it fair to say the Justice League relates to Gunn’s larger plans for the Gods and Monsters phase of the DCU?

Again, he offers a sly reply: “Sure.”

Corenswet takes a moment to consider the idea of leading a Justice League film, but first…the sound of baby talk cuts through the conversation. Over a follow-up call in May, Corenswet has traded the phone booth from EW’s cover for a botanical garden somewhere outside Los Angeles. He just flew in from Australia, where he filmed the movie Mr. Irrelevant with his DC costar David Krumholtz (he plays Zor-El in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow). Corenswet brought his wife and 1-year-old out with a group of friends, hoping the sunlight would help him beat the jet lag. 

The sun, as comic fans know, certainly helps Superman when he’s feeling weak. 

But now their daughter starts babbling.

“Which is our signal to wrap up in the next few minutes,” he says.

So…Justice League?

“I mean, that sounds awesome,” he responds. “I don’t take it upon myself to think ahead in that kind of way, just because one would hate to get one’s hopes up about anything in particular and then have it go in another direction. What I like to do is stay blissfully ignorant, and then when James tells me what’s going to happen, I get to have a wonderful surprise. So if Justice League is in the back of his mind, that sounds great to me. I’ll put it at the back of my mind and we’ll see what happens.”

Corenswet, a true jazz man, feels like the right guy to lead the way. After a streak of dark and gritty DC superhero movies made popular by the Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder age, “to make a Superman movie is a lot,” Gunn says. “I think, in some ways, he can be seen as a little old-fashioned, but I think that old-fashioned is something that’s really beautiful and, in its own way, the most rebellious thing about that character.”

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Directed by Alison Wild + Kristen Harding

Photography by Amber Asaly