Will DC Make a Superman: Red Son Movie?

With a recent comment by DC Studios chief James Gunn suggesting Elseworlds projects are in the works for the new DC Universe on film, could one of those movies be an adaptation of Superman: Red Son? The best-selling comic from Kick-Ass writer Mark Millar and a team of artists including Dave Johnson has been turned into one of Warner's direct-to-home animated movies, and there have been numerous claims over the years that Warner Bros. was interested in adapting the story to live action. The series, which takes place in an alternate timeline where Superman crash-landed in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas, has had huge merchandising upside in the comics community.

The odds don't seem very good right now. While Superman has been tagged as a high priority for the studio, James Gunn seems to want a clean slate, revealing on Twitter that he will be telling the story of a younger Superman from an early point in his career. Red Son is very much the story of an established Superman, and an established DC Universe. It's kind of necessary to the premise, since the world has been so radically reshaped by Superman being an agent of the Soviets.

That said, depending on the success of the first Superman movie, it's plausible that the Man of Steel could be one of the first characters to get the Elseworlds treatment.

"I think the offbeat stories are great, and I read Red Son in particular before I did Man of Steel, to get an idea of the baseline of the character because despite the fact that it's offbeat and he's grown up in a completely different environment, the character is still, at it's very core, the same thing, and I love that," Man of Steel star Henry Cavill said in 2016. "I think what's important now is to tell a story which is dedicated to sharing the same character in the comic books in the cinematic universe, and then after that's been established, then we can start exploring some more of the offbeat stuff."

When rumors started to swirl about a Red Son movie in late 2020, former studio chief Walter Hamada publicly disputed the rumors -- but praised the book and said that an adaptation would not be out of the question down the line.

"I think the possibility is there," Hamada said. "Our focus is great stories, so if we come across the right filmmaker with an interesting story, that doesn't work in our existing timeline, and it would work as an Elseworld, we would definitely explore that. We're not currently developing Red Son, so that isn't one of them, but when the right filmmaker or the right idea comes together, that's the beauty of [a] multiverse, is we can explore it. We can go down the road and take a shot at it....The answer is yes, there will be opportunities. That one is not one that we're currently exploring."