On June 25th, images from the set of James Gunn Superman movie filming in Cleveland, where creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were from so they’re at least aware of the symbolism, hit the internet. Hopefully the writing will be less symbolic and more actual story but we can only judge what we know so far when it comes to the depiction of Superman. I will say that there are less red flags than the previous Superman works the past few years, but adaptation is still up in the air.
Still, there are things I wanted to bring up about the set images (“of course, or why else would you be writing this article, you idiot!”). We have a look at the actors in character, including David Corenswet as both Clark Kent and Superman. Being my number one favorite superhero and me being a defender of the Clark Kent identity, I have thoughts, though right now I’m really just padding this out for the homepage. The big question I’m going to have for this movie is do they understand Superman and his world, or is this all based on a surface level understanding of Superman by people who see the “super” but not the “man”, and so do whatever they want with the Daily Planet staff, the Kent clan, and the last days of Krypton and the House Of El? Well, I can’t pad this out any more than this, so let’s look at the pictures, courtesy of X-Twitter user(s) DCU Updates.
Here’s a picture of the Daily Planet delivery truck, to show off the logo they’re going with. It works. I double-checked via Google Image Search and it does match up with previous versions of the logo. Does that mean they’re at least paying attention to the look of Metropolis’ most important (to us) denizens?
Here’s where we start having issues. Why does Clark look like he’s wearing a wig? That’s Supergirl’s thing, or it used to be before they dropped Linda Lee and her wig. Too bad, that helped set her apart from Clark while maintaining a connection. That or Clark smooths his hair every time he switches to Superman. Perhaps he had bedhead and forgot to comb today? I doubt it. This feels like another example of not understanding how the Clark Kent guise works. It isn’t just the glasses. I’ve gone over this numerous times. The big reason it works is that nobody believes, in world or in our world, that someone like Superman would humble himself as a mild-mannered reporter to live a normal life. Heck, nowadays he doesn’t even need it to keep track of what’s going on. We have the internet. I can bring up a website that’s tied to police bands, rescue worker communications, and that’s ignoring the news sites that keep wanting to send me push notifications on my browser or my phone even from the entertainment world.
The original excuse for Clark becoming a reporter in the early days of the character was to keep up with bad things going on in Metropolis and elsewhere, getting the news as it happens. As the character evolved, Clark learned he liked being a reporter and some of my favorite Clark stories involve him saving the day as a reporter instead of with his powers, though his powers do come into play. Even Smallville got that right.
Rather than show off each individual reporter, here’s a look at each actor in costume along with their comic depiction. It would have been nice to give Jimmy the same hairstyle. His Twitter-X profile pic as of this writing even has him with one that’s close enough that it would have made me happy, instead of imitating the Lois & Clark hairdo that Justin Whalin had. That said, I can settle for finally having a redheaded Jimmy.
Lois, Jimmy, and Steve Lombard are visually spot-on to their comic counterparts, making another black Perry White stand out for how wrong he looks. It’s not just the melanin shading being off but Wendell Pierce could have at least shaved. Laurence Fishburne made the same mistake, so I hope Pierce at least gets the personality right. The other Perry Blacks never do. I’m not picking on the man and I don’t have an issue with a black man in the movie. Ron Troupe is right there, and unlike My Adventures With Superman they actually kept him a man. This image really doesn’t give us a good look at actor…what the hell? I had to dig to find Christopher McDonald’s name! That’s the problem with adding so many unnecessary characters, like Mister Terrific and Metamorpho to Superman’s first appearance in the Gunniverse. I want to know how you’ll handle the Metropolis crowd before you add guys like them in. Anyway, here’s a better picture of McDonald using Ron’s fashion sense.
Actually, can we bring up a picture from set of Mister Terrific, as played by Edi Gathegi? Oh, that name I could find, and Michael Holt shouldn’t even be in this movie.
Ron and Michael should have switched actors. McDonald looks more like Michael “Mister Terrific” Holt and Edi Gathegi looks more like Ron Troupe. Missing entirely from the joint image is Mikaela Hoover as Cat Grant.
That’s actually rather good. Tell me again why Mister Terrific has the right look but the wrong actor (when the right actor is right there in your cast unless they couldn’t portray the other character as well), all of the Planet staff are at least closer than any live-action counterpart (Jimmy) before, but Perry is still off, Clark has a wig, and Superman…oh yeah, we have a better look at the Gunn outfit.
DC Film News has a look from the back, and another look at Mister Terrific’s outfit..
The brighter colors than the ones we saw in the preview are welcome. The trunks are confirmed, and we actually have the S shield on the back. Credit where it’s due, that’s all really nice. Unfortunately it’s still the wrong S, the collar and seems from the New 52 are still there (looking less like armor panel lines and Jim Lee’s obsession at the time with V-neck cuts, but still what a lot of other commenters are comparing it to along with the Kingdom Come “S” in the proper Superman colors), but they’re trying better than Zack Snyder’s outfit designer, who has no right complaining about the outfit given what he gave us. (Which reminds me, thanks to Bounding Into Comics, whose article on the pics helped me find some of them.) So to sum up:
What they got right: MOST of the actors look like their characters. The colors seems brighter, but the film editor hasn’t gotten to the saturation controls yet. The trunks are back, the S is back on the cape. We even have a redheaded Jimmy for the first time ever in live-action. They actually realized Mister Terrific’s outfit in live-action and it looks good both as an adaptation and something in a “real life” look.
What they got wrong: Mister Terrific and Ron Troupe should switch actors, they still can’t get Perry White correct in any post-comic take on the character ever since Snyder’s version (both in the physical and personality, though there’s still a small chance on the latter), and Superman’s costume still takes too much from Kingdom Come and The New 52 for my liking.
What I think overall: These are not official teaser images. They’re shots fans and news sources got from the set of James Gunn’s Superman. Still, it doesn’t change my position on this movie or the DC Gunniverse. There are things I like and things I think are wrong. Gunn still should have reset the entire universe instead of trying to shove the shows he made for the DCEU into his universe, and it makes the continuity feel weird from the start. So I’m not any more or less excited than I was before these images started coming out. I’m still in neutral since Hollywood is still not trustworthy and I’m not yet convinced Gunn is the solution to the problems that faced the live-action DC movies, and yet the visual trappings are better than what Snyder put out. Then again, looked what happened between the two Wonder Woman movies. I’m still in serious wait and see mode until I see more one way or the other.
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