Superman: Legacy

[Styles]

[Maestro 216]

Bane? *CIA posr*

[Beantownbrown]

James Gunn debunks rumor of Kurt Russell playing Jor-El

[Frontier]

So a younger Jor-El actor.

[Beantownbrown]

It’s official that Hoult will play Lex

[Scott Taylor]

A Lex different from anything we've seen before and will never forget? Hello Jesse Eisenberg!

Haha, I had to.

[Frontier]

Hopefully it's a good cinematic Lex .

[Beantownbrown]

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's 'Superman: Legacy's Filming Window and Plot

[daBronzeBomma]

Thoughts on everything about #SupermanLegacy so far.

No actual spoilers, but we're covering a *lot*!


1. Hard to verbalize exactly how I feel about Superman Legacy, but a few adjectives do come to mind: excited, anxious, and invested.

Excited because Superman is and has been my favorite fictional character since I was 7 (shout out to #superfriends) so I want to see him on the big screen again as the unquestioned focus of a great film.

Anxious because there is so much riding on the success of this movie, it's such a toss up right now, and dreading what if it is both critically bad AND commercially flops? Yikes.

Invested because ... maybe, just maybe we'll finally get the first truly great Superman movie since the 1978 movie.


2. Let's start with the one who has the most to gain and lose depending on this movie's success: James Gunn.

He is both The Writer AND The Director of Superman Legacy.

Not even the great Richard Donner thought he could do both BTS roles for his Superman movie.

I'll say this much for Gunn: Superman Legacy is 100% HIS baby and he owns it.

If it's great, then he'll get most of the credit ... but if it's bad, then he'll get most of the blame. If it's "mid", then everyone will get a piece of the reaction including him.

But he does seem fully invested in this one movie so far, so, here's hoping ...


3. David Corenswet is Live-Action Clark Kent The Fifteenth.

I know almost nothing about this actor, (other than that he's 6'4" tall, just turned 30, Jewish, went to Juilliard, looks like a younger blend of Henry Cavill and Tom Welling, and first mentioned that Superman was his dream role back in a 2019 interview).

I've never seen anything in which he's acted.

But he's at least the right level of anonymity for a Superman actor.


4. Rachel Brosnahan is Live-Action Lois Lane The Eleventh.

I've only seen clips of her in the Marvelous Mrs Maisel.

But that was enough.

She's as ideal an actress as there is out there to play The World's Greatest Journalist.

Plus, I like Rachel's height (5'3") and her slightly more experienced age (33 years) to play off the differences with Corenswet.


5. Nicholas Hoult is Live-Action Lex Luthor The Eleventh.

The man lost out on playing Bruce Wayne to Robert Pattinson in The Batman and then he loses out on playing Clark Kent to David Corenswet in Superman Legacy.

So it's kinda fitting then that he does play the villain often between those two heroes. Let any IRL resentment inform the performance.

I just hope Lex ISN'T the big bad of Legacy, and more of a supporting cast member to be used in multiple DCU films.

Also, at 6'3" and 34 years old, Hoult will be the closest any Live-Action Lex has gotten to their Superman in both height and age.


6. Sara Sampaio is Eve Teschmacher and Skyler Gisondo is Jimmy Olsen.

No opinion yet on Sara as Eve (other than why choose this Donner character over the better IMO character Mercy Graves as the Luthor Gal Friday of choice).

Skyler as Jimmy seems like a very deliberate comics-accurate pick (even if he's basically the same age as Corenswet), a move away from the recent colorblind Olsen casting choices of the CW's Supergirl and Adult Swim's My Adventures With Superman.


7. The other casting choices for the larger DCU in this film are mostly meh at this point.

Nothing against those particular actors (Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner instead of Hal Jordan is a notable swerve), but in a Superman film, I'm way more interested in the actual Superverse characters.

I'm still hoping that John Henry Irons, Kara Zor-El, Krypto, Perry White, Lana Lang, Jonathan and Martha Kent, Cat Grant, and even Bibbo all somehow show up in Legacy.


8. The primary inspirational source material choices revealed for Superman Legacy are so far top-notch.

Gunn has explicitly said that his primary source material inspirations will be "All-Star Superman" by Grant Morrison and "Superman For All Seasons" by Jeph Loeb.

Those are two of the consensus best Superman stories around for digging into what makes Clark tick.

Gunn is not directly adapting either story AFAIK, more likely taking cues from select parts and overall tones for the script.


9. Give me Brainiac.

One of the biggest and most legitimate criticisms about the big-screen editions of Superman is that they keep recycling Luthor and/or Zod over and over again.

Syfy's short-lived Krypton TV show gave us a taste of Brainiac finally done right. Imagine that kind of craftsmanship applied to Brainiac on the big screen fighting Superman? Could be epic.

Just not sure who would best play this villain aka Vril Drox aka Milton Fine?


10. The money is a big question mark on all fronts for Superman Legacy.

What'll its production budget be ?

What'll its domestic marketing budget be ?

What's their expectation for domestic opening weekend?

What's their expectation for both domestic and worldwide final grosses?

Warner is kinda betting a lot of the house on Legacy's success here, so their math better end up mathing.


11. What's the new costume going to look like?

Trunks, no trunks, or some compromise around the midsection?

Are we finally getting the golden S-shield back on the red cape?

Will the overall fabric revert to looking more spandexy like Reeve's, or stay more stylized like Cavill's?


12. The music is a big one: go back to re-using John Williams' score or do something new?

I'm going to zag here and hope they do something new.

The Williams' score remains fantastic, but it is SO identified with the Donner/Reeve incarnation that IMO using it keeps newer Superman projects that use it in that version's shadow.

I love Hans Zimmer's MOS score just as much as John Williams S:TM score. Both fit Supes extremely well but in very different ways.

In fact, the best Superman score I've ever heard is a Williams/Zimmer Mashup somewhere on YouTube that captures the best of both worlds.


13. For the love of God, please drop the "Space Jesus" angle for Superman Legacy.

Richard Donner injected this aspect into the franchise with Jor-El's monologue in STM. Then Bryan Singer added to it in SR. Then Zack Snyder tacked on more Christ-like imagery in MOS.

And none of it has helped the character at all IMO.

If James Gunn must draw from the Bible, there's Moses (for the origin) and Samson (for the superhuman strength with a specific weakness), two interesting yet flawed heroes that the Jewish Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster actually used when creating Clark back in the 1930s.

Bottom line: I don't know that I can be fully rational about Superman Legacy.

I do know that I am going to following its progress like a hawk over the next 1.5 years.

Right up until its scheduled opening night on Fri 11-Jul-2025, when I hope to have reserved a good seat in my local theater.


Current Level of Excitement: 8/10
Current Level of Anxiety: 9/10
Current Level of Investment: 10/10

[manwhohaseverything]

So a younger Jor-El actor.

Let the guy that plays clark play jor el..i mean,jor el is where clark gets all his features from..

[Styles]

9. Give me Brainiac.

One of the biggest and most legitimate criticisms about the big-screen editions of Superman is that they keep recycling Luthor and/or Zod over and over again.

Syfy's short-lived Krypton TV show gave us a taste of Brainiac finally done right. Imagine that kind of craftsmanship applied to Brainiac on the big screen fighting Superman? Could be epic.

Just not sure who would best play this villain aka Vril Drox aka Milton Fine?

Yes, 100. That was such a good show and a good interpretation of Brainiac. It’s time that he’s on the big screen.

Brainiac not only could test Superman’s strength, but his mind too.

[Anthony W]

Ugh..Apparently Tom King was one of the first people Gunn showed the Superman script to. He even asked him for notes.

“He’s one of the first people I showed the Superman script, asking for notes.

That is an actual James Gunn quote.

Buckle up, it's going to be a wild ride. I'm back in wait and see mode. Here is the link https://www.superherohype.com/movies...rse-james-gunn

[Powerboy]

It’s official that Hoult will play Lex

I'm trying to picture what this guy might look like bald while trying to ignore that something about him vaguely reminds me of Jesse Eisenberg.

[James Cameron]

Ugh..Apparently Tom King was one of the first people Gunn showed the Superman script to. He even asked him for notes.

That is an actual James Gunn quote.

Buckle up, it's going to be a wild ride. I'm back in wait and see mode. Here is the link https://www.superherohype.com/movies...rse-james-gunn

I really wish Tom King were not involved in the movies at all. I know Gunn loves him, but it does not sit well with me

[Beantownbrown]