Six weeks after the rumor mill started churning, James Gunn has cast Superman and Lois Lane for his DC cinematic universe reboot, Superman: Legacy. Relative unknown David Corenswet will play Superman, and Rachel Brosnahan, fresh off the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, will play Lois Lane.
I am especially glad to see Rachel Brosnahan pull through, not only because I think she can nail the combination of canniness and compassion that defines Lois, but also because some anonymous dingbat suggested she was “too old” for the role at a mere 32 and I hope that person dies mad. Corenswet, for the record, is 29.
The potential SAG-AFTRA strike—the deadline is looming this Friday—put pressure on Gunn and his team to complete casting before June 30, or they would not have been able to until the strike was resolved. At least this way, everything is sewn up regardless of what happens with a potential actors’ strike. But still, if the actors DO strike, Brosnahan and Corenswet would not be able to go to Comic-Con in July and appear in Hall H, as people usually do, to be anointed by the nerds as new superhero gods. Warner Brothers Discovery and DC Studios have not announced if they’re going to Hall H yet, but a lot of other studios are not. We’ll talk more about that closer to Comic-Con.
As for these two leading a new Superman movie, it’s a wash. I am big on Brosnahan, I think she’s a solid get for Lois Lane. But David Corenswet… I don’t remember him from Pearl, I don’t remember him from We Own This City, or Hollywood, or The Politician. I saw all of these things, and I even remember his death scene in Pearl, but I remember it because of Mia Goth’s perfectly unhinged performance, not because of anything he was doing. I went back to The Politician, one of Ryan Murphy’s increasingly unwatchable shows on Netflix, to find him, and it took a minute because my eyes kept sliding past his face. Corenswet has a superhero jaw for sure, but otherwise he’s got that dime a dozen Hollywood pretty boy look. Ask Brandon Routh how that worked out.
In related DC news, The Flash is in the middle of one of the worst blockbuster collapses in recent memory. Its box office plummeted 73% in its second weekend, worse than fellow flops Black Adam and Shazam!: Fury of the Gods. So yes, by all means, tell us about your shiny new superhero and distract us from the absolute train wreck happening over there.
One thing that probably hurt The Flash was that a successful and beloved Flash TV series only just wrapped up a nine-year run weeks before the movie premiered. Hardcore fans were well satisfied with Flash content. Similarly, Superman & Lois, a TV show centered on, well, Superman and Lois, was just greenlit for a fourth season. I bet the show, which airs on The CW and streams on Max, will wind up before the new movie comes out in 2025, but that still means that fans who care about Superman and Lois will have just had several years of actually really good storytelling featuring these characters. We’re learning nothing! Hooray!
If I sound skeptical, I am. Nothing in the last 30 years indicates audiences are dying for Superman at the movies. The character works intermittently on television, but cinematically, nah. Marvel got the similarly themed Captain America to work, but they made Cap a PTSD-riddled hardass to give him some dramatic appeal, but that vibe that won’t work for Superman. Also, I don’t think superhero fatigue has set in yet—The Flash is flopping but Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is doing very well, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is trucking along past $830 million—but “yet” is doing a lot of work. Superman: Legacy isn’t due till summer 2025. Plenty of time for the wheels to completely come off this thing for real.