As the DC Universe relaunches with Superman, one major question has followed the franchise since day one: what really happened with Henry Cavill? Now, DC Studios co-head James Gunn is pulling back the curtain on that delicate transition — including the moment he personally told Cavill he wouldn’t be returning as the Man of Steel.
“We sat down with Henry, we didn’t call him. We sat down with him,” Gunn explained on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “It’s terrible, yeah.”
The confusion around Cavill’s status reached a boiling point in October 2022 when he made a surprise cameo in Black Adam — and was quickly told by Warner Bros. to announce his return as Superman. Cavill posted on Instagram, “The image you see on this post and what you saw in Black Adam are just a very small taste of things to come.” That taste turned bitter just two months later when Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios and began charting a new course.
“The day our deal closed, all of a sudden they were announcing that [Cavill] was back. And I’m like, What is going on? We know what the plan is. The plan was to come in and do Superman. Yeah, so it was really unfair to him, and it was a total bummer.”
What Caused the Henry Cavill and Superman Confusion?
Gunn went on to explain the chaotic vacuum at DC at the time — multiple factions within the company, including former execs and a certain actor portraying Black Adam, were pushing different visions of the future. Cavill’s cameo was part of that confusion.
“There was a vacuum at the time, and a lot of people were trying to be as diplomatic as possible… trying to force their way. It just was never a part of the equation for David Zaslav [CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery].”
Faced with a messy situation they didn’t create, Gunn and Safran decided to handle it directly.
“So Peter and I — the right thing to do was to sit down with him and talk to him. And we sat down, we talked to him. He was an absolute gentleman, a great guy about it.”
And it was Cavill himself who made a very reasonable request:
“He said, ‘The only thing I ask is that I’m able to reveal it myself, as opposed to it coming from you guys.’ And I’m like, That’s… he’s a class actor. He has been from the start.”
Despite the heartbreak of the Superman recast, Gunn made it clear that Cavill’s days in the DCU might not be over: Yeah, no, I talked to him about it on that day. So yeah, no, I would, I would love to put Henry in something.” That’s the first official confirmation that Cavill could still join the DCU — just not as Kal-El.
Superman is in theaters now.
- Release Date
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July 9, 2025
- Runtime
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130 minutes
- Director
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James Gunn
- Producers
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Lars P. Winther, Nik Korda, Peter Safran