Henry Cavill Cannot Save Superman

Okay, I can’t be silent anymore because I’m getting sick of this. It’s not the first time I’ve disagreed with the internet. Right, Scrappy-Doo?

Yes, Henry Cavill got a raw deal by James Gunn, who wanted an all new Superman for James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn. We also seem to forget that he was also screwed over by Zack Snyder, a man who doesn’t believe in superheroes and has Superman stay away, never bring hope to anyone, wasn’t against revenge, and only killed because the story forced it on him without any real buildup to earn it. If we’re restarting this universe to the point that the studio itself rebranded, having the same actor playing Superman isn’t going to work.

However, because Cavill always wanted to play Superman (I wish he had gotten the chance), because he’s “one of us” as a geek and champion of proper adaptation, and because he’s a good actor elsewhere, there’s an almost-cult around the man specifically playing Superman, as if Christopher Reeve himself came down from on high and anointed Cavill his successor, and returned to God’s left hand (Jesus has the right–and Superman isn’t Jesus!!!!) so we must acknowledge our new patron saint of Krypton and burn James Gunn at the stake for his blasphemy of using a different actor. That’s just ridiculous. There are a lot of other reasons to warm up the bonfire for Gunn–I’ll bring marshmallows, but this cast change isn’t one of them.

To stoke that fire, we get the above tweet from Matt Ramos, this article from Screenrant (a site with some of the worst takes on Superman I’ve ever read), and the following video from someone I often agree with, Jeremy Prime of Geeks & Gamers on YouTube. Apparently there was a plan to make another Superman movie before Gunn rebooted all the things, which director Christopher McQueenie exposed on a recent podcast. He knew what he wanted to do with Superman and apparently the Cult Of Cavill is convinced this would have been so much better than the meh at best we’ve seen thus far from trailers, clips, and interviews for James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn.

Yeah…not convinced. Sorry.

Look, I’m not trashing Jeremy or any other Cavill fan. I like the guy and wish he could have played a proper Superman. We have never seen him play a proper Superman outside of a mid-credits cameo by Dwayne “I don’t care about comics, I’m a wrestler and I fight the champ instead of my character’s actual arch enemy” Johnson trying to get his Black Adam to fight Cavill’s Superman instead of Zachary Levi’s Geoff Johns “Shazam”. Otherwise, DC Extended Universe’s Superman story was told by Zack Snyder, a man who doesn’t believe in superheroism and whose movie I can only describe as a decent superhero movie but a terrible Superman movie, and Joss Whedon, who was using half of Snyder’s footage in his uneven fusion of styles in Justice League. We can’t say for certain if Cavill is “perfect” for it because we’ve never seen him do it. He’s also proud of his costume. You know:

The one that’s practically black and white, with a bit of red. (Insert Russian newspaper joke here.) Cavill thinks this suit, with its desaturated colors, lack of anything distinct to replace the trunks, has an S that was never in the comics (Gunn chose the wrong S but it’s from the comics), and a cape longer than my blanket is a good Superman suit. Has he asked for a more hopeful Superman? Yes he has, which is surprising because that link is also from ScreenRant and they love weak and dark Superman. Unless McQueenie could get Snyder, who seems to hate Superman only slightly less than Frederic Wertham, or Warner Brothers, who if they cared wouldn’t have let Snyder have his “Superman” in the first place, could get him to direct a Man Of Steel 2 in Zach’s place, you still wouldn’t have gotten hopeful Superman. Snyder’s the guy who wanted Superman to conquer the world for Darkseid because Lois died. Speaking of things I’m sick and tired of! He isn’t going to allow DCEU Superman to become the proper Superman because he doesn’t believe in him. Wonder Woman had to do a sidestep and then they got other things wrong in her sequel. Snyder likes his dark and depressing psycho heroes. That’s why he worked for Watchmen and didn’t work for the DC Universe proper.

I want a good Superman movie. He’s my favorite superhero, but I’m not tied to any one actor. I have my favorites in both voice and physical forms. Cavill is not one of them for the same reason a lot of people don’t like Val Kilmer’s one take as Batman: because we never really got to see them play those roles. Zack Snyder and Joel Schumacher respectively didn’t give us a good Superman or Batman story, didn’t get their screenwriters to do the characters justice, and didn’t take the right tone and style with the characters. Could Cavill BE a good Superman? Maybe. Will we ever know for sure? At this point probably not.

Cavill playing Superman instead of David Corenswet would not have fixed the problem because this isn’t Corenswet’s Superman, this is Corenswet playing James Gunn’s Superman, who from leaks, rumors, and official promotion has made this so about him that Krypto was replaced with his dog (or at least they share a breed…I don’t know if Gunn’s dog can act). It’s why I call it James Gunn’s Superman By James Gunn. That’s not on Corenswet for the same reason it’s not on Cavill and it wasn’t on Kilmer, who I thought was okay given the material he was forced to work with. The actor isn’t to blame, the director/showrunner and writers are and they should get all the blame for characters and stories adapted poorly. Reeve could return from the afterlife and reclaim the role and it still wouldn’t be better because who’s wearing the suit isn’t the problem. The people making him talk and act are.

So let’s stop pretending this would suddenly be good if Cavill had been pulled away from his Warhammer and computer building to be in this movie. It wouldn’t. Neither actor has any control of how good it is. Corenswet also likes Superman and is happy to play him, but because he’s replacing Cavill and hasn’t shown the same “geek cred” tendencies, he’s not being given the chance. Let’s see what he can do with a script that the trailer indicates involves everyone dumping on Superman and making the mistake of dropping all the heroes possible in now rather than build them up, one of the same mistakes they made with the last continuity in the rush to create their own Avengers, which in any cut Justice League wasn’t. He doesn’t look bad for the role and he seems to be a good actor, but the suit is not right and the story doesn’t appear to be a proper adaptation of Superman.

Why does that sound familiar?