STACK #252 October 2025

MOVIE FEATURE

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Director James Gunn and David Corenswet

GENRE: Action sci-fi RUN TIME: 2h 9m

After decades of comic books, radio serials, television shows, and movies, America’s – and the world’s – greatest superhero returns, renewed and ready to save mankind from the maniacal clutches of his oldest foe, Lex Luthor. Words Glenn Cochrane SUPERMAN

T his first adaptation since Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman v Superman returns to the bright, uplifting spirit popularised by Richard Donner’s 1978 classic starring Christopher Reeve, and it marks the debut film for the newly formed DC Studios under James Gunn’s direction. ”Superman is the start of it all. He’s the first superhero. He’s an incredibly important character to DC.” says Gunn, explaining the decision for Superman to be the first movie out of the gates. ”There’s a trinity, and it’s Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. But we’ve seen a lot more of Wonder Woman and Batman over the past few years than we have of Superman, so I felt like it was important to really put our best foot forward with DC Studios, and that was to start with Superman.” Of course, this isn’t the director’s first superhero rodeo. He rose through the indie ranks at Troma Studios, contributing to the Toxic Avenger universe, and went on to make films like The Specials (2000) and Super (2010) before helming Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and DC’s The Suicide Squad (2021). Needless to say, Gunn knew exactly what he was doing when appointed co-chairman and co CEO of DC Studios.

think it’s because of his innate goodness and, and his humanity, even though he’s an alien, and the fact that he is OK with being pollyannaish, it’s OK that he’s being optimistic, it’s OK that he’s vulnerable.” Fundamental to having the audience’s approval is casting the right person, and Gunn found his guy with David Corenswet, who had recently featured in Pearl and Twisters . ”I think anybody that sees the movie knows why David Corenswet is Superman. David is somebody who I saw in my friend Ti West’s film Pearl , and thought that guy should audition for Superman.” As good fortune would have it, he did audition and was the clear choice from over 30 initial prospects. ”I saw David reading on the first day, and he was amazing. One of the main scenes that the actors were reading from was a scene where Superman is arguing with Lois about his place in the world. David was great, when you see him in that scene in the movie, you realise this guy’s just a fantastic actor, and he also happens to look and sound a lot like Superman.”

the score and everything about it just kind of blew my mind. The key to reinvigorating the genre, after what many had called ”superhero fatigue”, was clear to Gunn, who applied his tried-and-true philosophy to the legacy. ”When I took on Guardians of

• Superman is out Oct 8

the Galaxy , I knew that we had had 25 years of sort of dark and dreary science fiction movies, where everything was supposed to be real because it was dark, and I felt like there was a place for color. ”Superman is a character who’s really about as good as a human being could be. He’s good natured, but just being purely good doesn’t mean he always does the right thing, logically. The movie is about a character who is purely good in a world that isn’t good, and I think that’s something we don’t really see. Everybody’s an anti-hero, and I think that when characters seem good, there is a tendency to kind of make fun of them and see them as goofy. But this character is noble and he’s beautiful, and he’s not always right and he makes mistakes. ”I get emotional because I think what this movie is about is, why do we love Superman so much? Is it because he can punch planets or pick up skyscrapers? I don’t think it is. I

”I’ve always liked Superman. I think as a kid I was really attracted to the Superman family comics, with Superman and

Supergirl and Krypto and the whole gang. And I was a huge fan of the

Richard Donner film as a child –

Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet

OCTOBER 2025

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