James Gunn has admitted the confusion around Henry Cavill’s return to Superman was “really unfair” on the actor.
James Gunn has admitted the confusion around Henry Cavill’s return to Superman was “really unfair”.
The 42-year-old actor had announced he was set to reprise the role, only to reveal two months later that he wouldn’t be part of the new DC Studios co-head’s vision for the franchise, and now James has explained he and Peter Safran were taken aback when his return was announced.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, James said: “We were dealing with trying to figure out if we could take the job at DC Studios, and we’re talking to David Zaslav and all the legal people there, and figuring out what our deals would be.
“And the day our deal closed, all of a sudden they were announcing that Henry was back.
“I’m like, what is going on? Like, we know what the plan is, the plan was to come in and do Superman.
“That was really unfortunate, I’m like, this poor guy.”
The new DC bosses were impressed with how Henry handled the news.
James continued: “And so Peterand I [knew] the right thing to do is to sit down with [Cavill] and talk to him.
“And we sat down, we talked to him, he was an absolute gentleman, a great guy about it. He said, ‘The only thing I ask is that I’m able to reveal it myself as opposed to it coming from you guys.’
“It was really unfair to him and was a total bummer.”
James explained there were external influences who “wanted to take on what they wanted to do at DC and were trying to force their way and it just was never a part of the equation.”
The filmmaker – who cast David Corenswet in the title role of his Superman movie – was asked if it would be “too confusing” to recast Henry in a different DC Universe role, and he admitted he is keen to work with the Witcher star.
He said: “No, as another character? Absolutely not. I talked to him about it on that day. I would love to put Henry in something.”
James Gunn admits Superman confusion was ‘unfair’ to Henry Cavill
