Michael Rosenbaum Asked James Gunn About a New DC Role: “Why Am I Not in Superman?”

This is a bald head-scratcher: Why isn’t Michael Rosenbaum in Superman?

It’s a question the actor posed to his friend and filmmaker James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, and who is writing and directing the Superman reboot starring David Corenswet as theMan of Steel and Nicholas Hoult as his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor — the role that Rosenbaum played across seven seasons as a series regular on Smallville.

“I’m always up for a challenge. I’m always up for fun,” the DC alum said of potentiall returning to the DC universe during a Nashville Comicon 2024 panel hosted by ComicBook’s Chris Killian. “Whatever comes to me, I look at it, and if it’s not too silly, or if it makes me laugh, or I think I could do a really good job or I think I can make an impression, I’ll do it. So I’m at that point in my career where I just want to do things that I love, that I want to do.”

While Rosenbaum is best known among DC fans for playing Clark Kent’s friend-turned-foe in the WB/CW Superman prequel series and for voicing the Flash in the Justice League animated show, Rosenbaum has voiced a number of other DC characters — including Deadman, Kid Flash, and the Barry Allen Flash — across episodes of Batman Beyond, Static Shock, Teen Titans, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Should Gunn ask him to join the ever-growing list of actors who have already signed onto the burgeoning DCU, Rosenbaum said, “I’d obviously love to work with my buddy James again.” 

“I asked him, ‘Why am I not in Superman? Why am I not in the movie somehow?’” Rosenbaum recalled with a smile, adding, “It was fine, though. I wish him all the happiness. He deserves all the success he has. He’s enormously talented. When it’s the right thing, he’ll ask me. Or he won’t. And that’s aside from friendship. When your friends go off and do big things, you say, ‘Hey, they know I’m here. They know my number.’ And you just hope for the best.”

Rosenbaum also revealed during the convention that his Marvel role as the space-faring Ravager Martinex “was supposed to be a lot bigger” in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, but “they cut a lot out.” 

James Gunn’s Superman takes flight into theaters on July 11, 2025.