Superman
DC
It’s been a big week for DCEU news, though it’s hard to get over the first blockbuster reveal of the Snyder Cut of Justice League coming to life as a promotional tool to acquire HBO Max subscribers in 2021.
But today we have a separate report out of Deadline that says that Henry Cavill, who has played Superman in three DCEU films including Justice League, may not be done with the role yet, and is in talks to return as Clark Kent/Supes in future projects.
Though the nature of those future projects remains unclear.
Deadline says that no, there is not a Man of Steel sequel in development, even though that was arguably the best we saw from his character (and from Snyder) in this universe. But the current arrangement might mean that Cavill’s Superman reappears in some sort of cameo or supporting role in future projects.
Wonder Woman 1984 and the new Suicide Squad are already done, so it won’t be those. It wouldn’t make any sense for him to show up in Matt Reeves The Batman, if that’s even a part of the DCEU at all. So the only choices of future films that we know about would be Shazam 2, Black Adam, Aquaman 2 or The Flash movie that has been delayed so many times at this point it may have ceased to exist.
Man of Steel
DC
For all the criticism of the DCEU over the years, casting Henry Cavill is a literal picture perfect Superman has never really been an issue. How the character was written and used is a different story, from the “maybe you should have let those kids in the bus die” in Man of Steel to “Martha!” in Batman V. Superman to his CGI-infused resurrection in Justice League. In short, Cavill’s Superman has never really gotten to fully live up to his potential.
Of course Cavill may not have time for fully new Superman movies with his other current starring role playing Geralt on The Witcher, Netflix’s most watched original series in history. That show is likely to air for a few more years at least, and is no doubt a sizable time commitment for the actor. Not to say he can’t multitask, but going back to headline a superhero movie franchise and star in a streaming fantasy series is probably too tall of an order, hence the return possibly just being cameos.
Whatever is going on with this, we probably won’t see the end result for a while. And by the time we do, maybe his return will indeed somehow be more substantive than a simple cameo, but we’ll have to wait and see.