James Gunn’s Superman: Everything We Know About the Movie After the Latest Trailer

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…another reboot of Superman? Originally titled Superman: Legacy, the James Gunn-directed Superman movie will premiere across theatres in the United States on July 11th this year. With a little over a month to go, DC Studio has been providing fans with updates, teasers, and sneak peeks into behind-the-scenes moments. While the plot of the film is being kept strictly under wraps, we still know quite a bit about the upcoming movie from the various trailers and teasers, especially the ones released in the past couple of months. 

Two years ago, on March 16th, James Gunn tweeted, “Yes, I’m directing Superman: Legacy to be released on July 11, 2025.”  Arriving a couple of weeks ahead of Marvel’s reboot of Fantastic Four, the film is the first project in the new “DC Universe” franchise, which replaces the former “DCEU” and will probably set the tone for the new interconnected universe that DC Studios plans to build. As such, heavy is the responsibility that falls on Gunn’s shoulders, especially considering, historically speaking, Superman’s story has proven to be a tough tale to tell. But if Guardians of the Galaxy taught us anything, it’s that Gunn has a penchant for spinning epic stories that have their heart in the right place. And so far, the trailers seem to prove just that. 

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“The primary protagonist of Superman is, shockingly, Superman (David Conrenswet). The main villain of Superman is, shockingly, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult)”, Gunn shared on Threads last year. While that perhaps gives us an inkling of what the main arc will be about (after all, Luthor and Superman’s rivalry has been thoroughly explored in the comics and their many adaptations alike), the scope of the film seems to be much bigger, at least according to recent trailers.

Several heroes and villains will join our favorite OP Kryptonian as he attempts to convince a jaded world what kindness and justice truly mean. This is not going to be an origin story. It will (apparently) not spend a lot of time delving deep into Kal-El’s aristocratic Kryptonian past or his years growing up on a tiny farm in Kansas. The film will find “Clark Kent” already in Metropolis, trying to make his mark as a reporter at the Daily Planet, while his superhero alter ego attempts to do good in a world quickly tiring of the antics of superpowered beings. 

“I stopped a war!” a clearly agitated Superman says to Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) in the main official trailer for the film. Clearly, this Superman is not the untouchable or aloof version we met in the old films. We already know from his meteoric crash in the Arctic that he can be hurt; in fact, he can apparently be beaten to a bloody pulp. What we’ve also gathered so far is that Gunn seems determined to stray far from the dark, gritty take on Superman that the DCEU went with. Instead, he is returning the last son of Krypton to his Boy Scout roots. From the first teaser, the Superman we witness is reminiscent of the symbol of hope a lot of us were familiar with growing up, through comics and Christopher Reeve adaptations, one that has been lost in adaptation over the past few decades. Gunn’s Superman believes in doing good. He stands for kindness, for empathy, for refusing to back down when lives are at stake. He is not a killer. He is a protector. This is evident from the snippet where we see him arguing with Lois Lane about the consequences of his stopping a war in the fictional nation of Boravia. All he wanted to do was save lives, but the world sees it differently, painting him as a wildcard who thinks he is beyond the reach of the law. 

“Look up”, says the tagline of the film. Look up, because that’s where hope is. Where Superman is and always will be. Gunn’s Superman is not invincible; he is just dauntless in the pursuit of what’s right. His refusal to stand idly by while lives are lost and justice is at stake in a world where kindness is no longer in vogue is perhaps what will be the main focus of the story. It certainly seems to earn him a lot of enemies, including one massive armored villain who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes. So far, we only know this villain as the Hammer of Boravia, an original villain created by Gunn for this film. He first appeared in promo material released last year, in a Daily Planet piece written by Kent himself. According to the newspaper clipping, the Hammer of Boravia came seeking “retribution for the recent political interventions in Boravia by Superman” and attacked downtown Metropolis, leaving 22 citizens injured. 

Aside from the Hammer, Supes also takes on The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) and a massive fire-breathing kaiju that Gunn recently said takes inspiration from Godzilla Minus One. Several other superpowered beings will seemingly appear in the film, including the “Justice Gang” members (Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner), and Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, a pivotal superpowered being. Joining them in this star-studded cast are Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Wendell Pierce as Perry White, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan Kent, Neva Howell as Martha Kent, and Gunn’s own brother, Sean, as the businessman Maxwell Lord. Kara Zor-El, played by none other than House of the Dragon’s Milly Alcock, is also set to make her first appearance on screen as Supergirl.

But perhaps the most important character, and one who fans are terribly excited to see, is Superman’s equally superpowered pooch, Krypto. The raggedy, excitable superdog is based on Gunn’s own dog, Oju. We properly meet him in this sneak peek that also gave us a proper look into the Fortress of Solitude, where a team of apparently emotionless automatons wait to take care of Superman’s needs and help him heal from major injuries.

Gunn himself wrote the script (and was originally not so keen on directing it). The writing is apparently heavily inspired by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Superman for All Seasons limited series (1998), Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman (2005-2008), and other OG Superman comics. The film will have a runtime of two hours and nine minutes, which is interesting considering the sheer number of characters Gunn has set out to explore in that span. 

Superman will be in theaters and IMAX on July 11th.

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