[Warning: This article contains Superman spoilers.] Sometimes even Superman isn’t faster than a speeding bullet. At one point in James Gunn’s Superman, Clark Kent/Kal-El (David Corenswet) is arrested after envious archnemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) leaks a message from Superman’s biological parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan), instructing the Last Son of Krypton to rule over the Earth. Superman, in order to find kidnapped dog Krypto, turns himself over to the government, who outsource his confinement and interrogation to PlanetWatch: a division of LuthorCorp contracted to protect the planet against “otherworldly threats” like the alien Superman.
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Luthor’s metahuman enforcers — the nanites-infused Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) and the masked Ultraman, Luthor’s imperfect Superman clone (Corenswet in a dual role) — arrest Superman with General Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who hands the Man of Steel over to Luthor. Superman is then imprisoned in the pocket universe Luthor accesses from dimensional portals set up around the globe.
It’s revealed that Luthor has been colluding with Boravian president Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić), and that the war-profiteering arms dealer manufactured the war between Boravia and Jarhanpur to have an excuse to kill Superman. President Ghurkos witnesses Luthor’s interrogation of Superman, who is weakened by kryptonite and powerless to stop Luthor from executing Malik Ali (Dinesh Thyagarajan), a falafel vendor who appears earlier in the film when he helps Superman during a kaiju’s attack on Metropolis (also Luthor’s doing).
As it turns out, the scene was originally much darker. Gunn revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he toned down the aftermath of Malik’s death, which leaves an anguished Superman wailing after watching Luthor shoot the friendly civilian in the head.
“There’s a really dark thing in there. There was a really dark thing,” Gunn said. “Once I saw the movie, I’m like, ‘This is [too dark].’ So Lex shoots the guy in the head, that was always done in this extreme wide [shot] so it’s not too graphic. But the guy fell on the ground, and blood is pouring out onto the platform, and Lex looks down and sees the blood is about to get on his shoes.”
At that point, Luthor would have Ghurkos get on the ground to soak up Malik’s blood from seeping into his shoes. “Ghurkos goes, ‘What? No!’ And Nic looks at him, and his delivery is great, because he looks at him straight and [says], ‘No?’ And then Ghurkos, sheepishly, sadly, trudges forward and lays down on his back.”
Gunn continued, “And [Burić], he’s so funny. He lays down on his back and starts soaking up the blood. Then Nic looks over at Superman and says, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’” Gunn noted the scene was shot but was “cut pretty early,” adding, “I don’t think that was even ever in a test screening.”
Before the film’s release, Gunn revealed that Drew Goddard, writer of Marvel’s Daredevil and the films The Martian, The Cabin in the Woods, and Project Hail Mary, recommended he trim the scene.
“Drew Goddard was really helpful,” Gunn told Collider. “I think that there were a couple of little things in the movie, three or four things that we really argued about in the film, and all of them had to do with things that were a little bit darker or a little bit lighter. In discussing one of them, Drew Goddard was like, ‘You know what? It’s just not that film. It’s not that film with this little dark ending bit.’”
“And I thought, ‘He’s right. It’s not that film. It is not that film,’” Gunn continued. “And so that line that he said stuck with me for the rest of editing.”
DC Studios’ Superman is now playing only in theaters.
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