Henry Cavill Breaks Silence on His Return as Superman: “A Very Small Taste of Things to Come”

Spoilers ahead for Black Adam, in theaters now. Henry Cavill took to Instagram today to officially confirm his intent to return as Superman, sharing a new image of himself in the costume and promising that there is much more to come. The star said that he waited until after Black Adam‘s opening weekend had happened, in the hopes that he would not spoil the mid-credits stinger in which Cavill’s Superman turned up to have a chat with Dwayne Johnson’s antihero.  Now that the internet at large knows all about that, though, Cavill is on the record that this is just the beginning.

The actor was cast as Clark Kent/Superman for 2013’s Man of Steel. He reprised the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League (both versions), with rumors and fan demands running more or less nonstop since BvS that Cavill would eventually get a Superman sequel.

“The image you see on this post and what you saw in Black Adam are just a very small taste of things to come,” Cavill said. “There’s a lot to be thankful for, and I’ll get to that in time, but I wanted to thank you guys most of all. Thank you for your support and thank you for your patience. I promise it will be rewarded.”

You can see his message below.

Man of Steel, from director Zack Snyder, kicked off DC’s interconnected film universe, and the trend of Snyder’s DC movies being intensely loved and intensely hated by warring factions of the audience. Batman v Superman only exacerbated that dynamic, and then Justice League turned out to be a disaster so profound it took five years and a director’s cut before Warners could move forward from it.

Even among Snyder’s harshest critics, the performances turned in by Cavill and Amy Adams as Superman and Lois Lane have mostly drawn praise. You could print out enough glib “He’s a great Superman, too bad he was stuck in those movies” tweets to wallpaper the White House. In spite of that, the former management at Warners was apparently resistant to bringing Cavill back, with Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson saying he had to fight tooth and nail to secure a cameo for Cavill. 

Rumors have been circulating in recent weeks that the star’s Black Adam cameo was part of a larger push to get a new movie for Cavill. How and whether that movie will be impacted by the events of The Flash remains to be seen. At one point, rumors circulated saying that The Flash would include a sequence time-traveling into the events of Man of Steel.