With word circulating that Henry Cavill is out as Superman in future DCEU movies, the question of just what Warner Bros. has planned for the Man of Steel on the big screen is on everyone’s minds. The reasons behind Cavill’s exit (assuming he actually has exited the role) may have something to do with the lack of a clear vision for Superman movies at Warner Bros. After all, Cavill signed on for what he likely thought was a central role in a franchise with Man of Steel, found himself relegated to second billing in its sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and was essentially a supporting player in Justice League.
It would appear that the studio has no real plans for a solo Superman movie at the moment, and despite the occasional rumbling of a Man of Steel 2, there has never been anything concrete, and now writer or director has ever been attached. Deadline has word “that Warner Bros. has been mulling a completely different direction with its Superman canon for some time, even considering casting Michael B. Jordan in the role down the road.”
It’s no surprise that the studio doesn’t really know what to do with Superman. They haven’t for over 20 years. Based on both their caped output and the fact that development hell is littered with the dessicated corpses of Superman movies that failed to get off the ground over the course of the last three decades. The thought of a traditional, solo Superman movie is something that they’ve balked at since Superman Returns underperformed and Man of Steel “only” brought in $668 million at the global box office.
The one Superman story executives have any faith in, the character’s death at the hands of Doomsday, a story that could support several movies and that was the basis of no fewer than six unproduced screenplays between the mid-90s and early 2000s, was ham-handedly shoehorned into the end of Batman v Superman, and is now off the table.
The DCEU films aren’t going to reboot their core continuity any time soon. Despite the apparent departure of Cavill and the constantly imminent departure of Ben Affleck as Batman, Jason Momoa will return as Aquaman this December, 2019’s Shazam exists firmly in the same world established between Man of Steel and Justice League, and Gal Gadot will return as Diana for Wonder Woman 1984 later that year. While Henry Cavill will need to be replaced at some point, it’s unlikely to be by Jordan.
But Michael B. Jordan could certainly fill the role of Superman in other projects. Warner Bros. is already experimenting with DC movies that fall outside the usual established DCEU continuity. The first of these, 2019’s Joker, stars Joaquin Phoenix in the title role instead of the already established Jared Leto, and while it tells the origin story of the Clown Prince of Crime, it isn’t the origin story of the Joker audiences met in 2016’s Suicide Squad movie. For one thing, it’s set in the 1980s, a period which automatically puts it at some distance from the modern DCEU.
While it’s certainly possible that Warner Bros. might consider a black retelling of the Superman legend (and who could be better for the lead than the versatile, endlessly charismatic Jordan?), there are other routes the studio could take. A personal favourite of mine is Calvin Ellis, the Superman of Earth 23.
Ellis, created by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke, has a story that mirrors much of the familiar Superman legend, until he becomes President of the United States, and has to balance that with his role as Earth’s greatest hero. There’s a lot of fun that could be had with Jordan as both President and Superman, and it would certainly ease any studio exec fears that the usual trappings of a Superman movie are too well worn for modern audiences.
In any case, it might not be worth reading too deeply into a throwaway line in a Deadline report, especially as Cavill’s exit from Metropolis hasn’t been officially confirmed. I wouldn’t start fitting Michael B. Jordan for a cape just yet, but as Warner Bros. seems willing to explore the DC multiverse as much as the traditional shared cinematic universe model, you might not want to rule him out, either.