Comic book fans were surprised last year when it was announced that Warner Bros. was developing a new Superman movie written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and produced by J.J. Abrams. The film isn’t expected to star Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel but will instead focus on a new version of Superman, with early reports suggesting that Coates, Abrams, and Warner Bros. were looking to cast a Black actor as the character.
Over the past year, however, DC Comics fans have been given very few updates on the project, leading some fans to believe it may have stalled out or been abandoned. Now, a new DC leak not only suggests the film is still happening, but that it will present audiences with a very different version of the Man of Steel than they’ve come to expect.
The Leak — In a recent Twitter thread, user @GeoPanda24 tweeted out a string of details they claim to know about the Abrams-produced Superman reboot. According to the thread, the film will take place in the modern day and will use Superman’s “alien heritage as a parallel to racism.” The film will apparently imagine Superman as a “champion of the oppressed.”
Additionally, the film is said to focus on a much weaker version of Superman than audiences are used to seeing, one who doesn’t have heat vision, frost breath, or x-ray vision, and who can’t fly. Coates’ script for the film is currently said to be 165 pages long and uses the “golden age version” of the Ultra-Humanite as its primary villain.
Warner Bros. apparently sees the film as a possible “awards contender” in the same vein as 2019’s Joker, rather than as a standard comic book action movie.
A Golden Age Superman — Assuming these leaked details are accurate, that means Warner’s new Superman film will be unique in ways comic book fans probably didn’t see coming. Not only does this leak suggest that the film will introduce viewers to a new version of Superman, but he’ll be one who’s very different from the all-powerful brooder Henry Cavill played in Zack Snyder’s DCEU films.
It’s impossible to say what that means for Henry Cavill’s future as the character. In the Twitter thread, it’s said that Warner Bros. plans on adopting a colorblind approach when it begins the casting process. Other characters in Coates’ script, however, are said to have been written with specific backgrounds in mind.
Regardless of who ends up getting cast, these details all suggest that the film will tell a very different story than any of Warner Bros.’ past Superman movies have. Depending on how you feel about the project, that’s either an incredibly exciting or irritating prospect.
The Inverse Analysis — As is always the case with leaks like these, make sure to take these claims with a whole salt shaker. Warner Bros. has yet to confirm much about the project, and it seems likely that fans will probably have to wait a while before they find out more about its story, characters, and cast members.
All this leak definitely does is give fans one idea of how Warner’s new take on the Man of Steel could end up being different from previous iterations of the character, but that’s exciting enough for now.
