James Gunn Debunks Rumors of a Major Superman Villain Reveal In Latest Trailer

Director James Gunn debunked a fan theory about his upcoming Superman movie on Threads, leaving some fans disappointed but grateful for the clarification. It started with a screenshot from the most recent trailer, and a shot where Superman is flying so fast, he’s hard to make out. A fan tried altering the brightness on the image, speculating that this might not be the Man of Steel at all, but perhaps a surprise character we haven’t even heard will be in this movie. Considering the colors and the supersonic flight, they figured this could be Bizarro, but Gunn responded promptly to say it is not.

“Haha it’s Superman. It’s real photography of David [Corenswet],” the filmmaker wrote. A few fans considered that he might still be deflecting from the truth to try and cover up his secrets, but most took him at his word. Gunn is very straightforward with fans on social media, and while a few would have preferred to ponder this theory a bit longer, others were glad he corrected their course so they wouldn’t go too far in the wrong direction.

Superman is already packed to the gills with heroes and villains, so a secret character this late in the game would be a real shock. We’ll meet the DCU’s new Lex Luthor in this movie, and it looks like he’ll be working with Angela Spica, The Engineer from The Authority, as well as Creature Commandos’ Rick Flag Sr. Sean Gunn is also making his debut appearance as Maxwell Lord, and there’s a mysterious masked figure in the trailer that many fans suspect is Ultraman, or a version of him.

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There are just as many heroes to introduce in this movie — we’ll meet the Green Latern Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Mister Terrific, and Metamorpho. We can’t assume they’ll all be perfectly aligned with Superman, though we know that they’re definitely not villains either. This movie is also expected to introduce Supergirl before she gets her own movie next year.

The stacked cast has many fans and critics low-balling their estimations of the worldbuilding and story content of this movie, wondering how it will bring all these elements together in a compelling story. We don’t know much about the plot so far, and it’s safe to say there’s some kind of surprise ahead when it comes to the narrative. We’ll find out for ourselves soon enough — Superman hits theaters on July 11th in the U.S.