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Why Henry Cavill’s Superman Return Announcement Left DC’s James Gunn Confused

Why Henry Cavill’s Superman Return Announcement Left DC’s James Gunn Confused

The final years of the DC Extended Universe threw up some wonderfully deranged, perplexing, and even downright tragic moments. There was the time James Gunn said “The Flash” was one of the best superhero movies he’d ever seen, only for the film to become an uneven, janky, CGI-laden, nostalgia-bait box office disaster of superheroic proportions. Then, there was “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” which despite being a reminder that superhero flicks can be fun failed to bring in the crowds, prompting star Zachary Levi to have a full social media meltdown during which he posted videos beginning with an impassioned rendition of Journey’s “Lights” before urging people to see his movie and putting people’s lack of interest down to them wanting “dark” and “nothing but intense” action. Part of Levi’s grievance was seemingly that Dwayne Johnson had axed a “Shazam! 2” post-credit scene, which he considered to be a big deal that might have helped his movie make more than $134 million worldwide — and this is where things got truly dismal for the DCEU.

We all surely remember Johnson promising that his “Black Adam” movie would change “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe.” But when the film made $393 million on a $200 million budget (not even enough to break even when factoring in marketing costs), Johnson appeared utterly incapable of accepting that his film was not the mega-hit he’d envisioned. Then came the truly bizarre moment when Henry Cavill, whose Superman had a cameo in “Black Adam,” announced he was officially “back” as the Man of Steel in the DCEU. There were several perplexing aspects to this development. For one thing, Cavill made the purportedly “official” announcement from his backyard with a selfie video. For another, this all took place amid what was a dismaying state of affairs for “Black Adam” at the box office. As such, many DC fans who were already troubled to see their beloved franchise flailing so conspicuously were left confused and troubled by the whole thing — and apparently, they weren’t the only ones, as James Gunn, who is now running things over at DC Studios, also couldn’t wrap his head around any of it.

James Gunn was more confused than anyone by Henry Cavill’s Superman return

The downfall of the DCEU is a complicated piece of recent cinematic history, so if you need a refresher on Dwayne Johnson and Henry Cavill’s bizarre attempts to stay in DC’s cinematic universe, we’ve already assembled a timeline of this whole tawdry affair. In simple terms, Johnson seemed set on taking over as the leading voice at what was then the DC Films division of Warner Bros., and had come to blows with then-head Walter Hamada about how best to steer the franchise moving forward. When I say “come to blows,” I mean just crammed a Henry Cavill cameo in his “Black Adam” movie despite Hamada advising against it.

When this cameo failed to generate enough buzz to make “Black Adam” a commercial success, Johnson and Cavill went into “activation” mode, which essentially means the Superman actor jumped on social media and announced he was officially returning as Supes in an attempt to boost the box office take, perhaps at the behest of Dwayne Johnson, we don’t know. Sadly for them, mass audiences responded with a collective shrug, and everybody came away from the whole thing much like Superman after going 10 rounds with Black Adam: confused, a little shaken, and not really wanting to see much more of Dwayne Johnson in a CGI leotard any more.

But the most confused person was surely James Gunn, who, during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, revealed that the same day Cavill announced his triumphant return, he was inking a deal to completely reboot the DC cinematic universe with a new “Superman” movie — which finally debuted in July 2025. As Gunn — who is now the co-head of DC Studios — told host Josh Horowitz, “The day our deal closed, all of a sudden, they were announcing that Henry was back, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ We know what the plan is. The plan was to come in and do ‘Superman.'”

James Gunn must have been truly bewildered by Henry Cavill’s announcement

It must have been truly mystifying to have signed a deal to overhaul Warner Bros.’ entire DC Cinematic Universe on the same day that a former Superman actor was announcing he would be the official Man of Steel for the DCEU moving forward — especially since it turns out Henry Cavill’s Superman recasting was considered much earlier, with Gunn being approached to recast the role well before he and Peter Safran took over as co-heads of DC Studios. But when James Gunn says “they” were announcing Henry Cavill’s return, in reality, “they” weren’t announcing anything. That is, Warner Bros. wasn’t announcing anything, and quite rightly, since Cavill didn’t have a deal for any more Superman movies at the time. It was Cavill who was publicly declaring his comeback had been made official. But this was already suspect since his social media videos weren’t accompanied by any official WB press releases of any kind.

During his Happy Sad Confused appearance, Gunn said, “It was really unfair to [Cavill] and was a total bummer,” which is interesting as it implies that Cavill was merely carrying out whatever Warner Bros. was telling him to do behind the scenes. But according to Gunn, CEO David Zaslav was very much set on razing the DCEU entirely, as evidenced by the fact that he was signing Gunn at the very moment Cavill was telling everyone he was back.

As Gunn sees it, this all stemmed from “a vacuum” at DC Films, which is a reference to the fact that Walter Hamada stepped down as DC Films head two days before “Black Adam” debuted in theaters. The DC Studios co-head continued, “A lot of people were […] they wanted to take on what they wanted to do with DC and were trying to force their way, and it just was never a part of the equation for David Zazlav, who was the head of WB.” The “Superman” director doesn’t clarify who those “people” were, but if you’re imagining a large former wrestler with a lot of goodwill to squander, you’re probably onto something.

Following this whole sorry debacle, Gunn was put in the position of sitting down with Cavill and officially letting him go. But according to the DC Studios head, the actor was an “absolute gentleman,” and only asked that he be able to reveal the news himself, which, considering he’d told everyone he was coming back in the first place, was probably a good idea. So, Cavill remains a great Superman who never got a great Superman movie. That said, Gunn also confirmed that he’d be happy to cast the British star in his burgeoning DC Universe, so his superhero days might not be over yet. If he does play another DC character in the future, though, it’s probably best to wait for someone else to announce it.




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