After His “Woke” ‘Superman’ Criticism Went Viral, Dean Cain Clarifies His Stance on James Gunn’s New Film [Exclusive]

Dean Cain stood for truth, justice, and the American way as Superman on TV, but he’s now at the center of a very different conversation. After TMZ published comments in which Cain criticized the so-called “woke-ification” of the Man of Steel, headlines spread like wildfire — with many assuming he was attacking James Gunn’s Superman reboot outright. Now, Cain is setting the record straight.

Speaking at FanX during a panel hosted by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Cain clarified the comments by first saying, “I just continually speak what I think is the truth.” He proceeded to explain what he really meant when asked about Gunn’s film in recent interviews:

“They were asking me a question about the new movie. I said I haven’t seen it. They were asking the question ‘How woke will this be or will it be woke?’ So they took that quote, stuck it in a headline and had me going ‘How woke this movie is.'”

Cain emphasized that he never slammed the movie itself — in fact, quite the opposite:

“I think James Gunn makes funny movies. I love the first Guardians of the Galaxy. In truth, I think the film will be phenomenal, but that wouldn’t be a headline… It’s crazy how this industry works.”

Despite the viral narrative, Cain claims his comments were never intended as an attack on Gunn personally or the film’s creative team. Indeed, Cain later went on to add that he faced prejudice himself when being cast as Superman back in the early 1990s. Cain, born Dean Tanaka, is quarter-Japanese, and recalled being labelled “Sushiman” when he was first cast. To date, Cain remains the only non-100% white actor to play Superman.

What Did Dean Cain Reportedly Say?

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

In a TMZ interview last month, Cain commented on what he called Hollywood’s obsession with updating legacy characters — Superman included:

“How woke is Hollywood going to make this character? How much is Disney going to change their Snow White? Why are they going to change these characters [to] exist for the times? For Superman, it was ‘truth, justice, and the American way.’ Well, they dropped that… They came up with ‘truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.’ Changing beloved characters I don’t think is a great idea. If you want to create a new character go ahead and do that.”

Cain was particularly critical of Gunn’s previously reported comments to The Times of London, where the Superman director said the film was about “an immigrant” and called Superman’s story “the story of America.” Cain disagreed with the framing, saying the metaphor falls flat when taken too far:

“Superman has always stood for ‘truth, justice and the American way,’ and the ‘American way’ is immigrant friendly, tremendously immigrant friendly. But there are rules. You can’t come in saying, ‘I want to get rid of all the rules in America, because I want it to be more like Somalia.’ Well that doesn’t work, because you had to leave Somalia to come here… We can’t have everybody, society will fail. So there have to be limits.”

Cain is no stranger to weighing in on the politics of superheroes — but this time, he’s clarified the narrative that he’s not entirely opposed to Gunn’s new vision. While he holds firm to more traditional views of what Superman should represent, he now acknowledges that Superman could still be a success — and that his viral criticism may have been taken out of context.

Superman is in theaters now, and James Gunn recently confirmed development on a follow-up is already underway.

Superman

Release Date

July 9, 2025

Runtime

130 minutes

Director

James Gunn

Producers

Lars P. Winther, Nik Korda, Peter Safran