{"id":55927,"date":"2025-07-11T04:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T04:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/55927\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T04:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T04:34:09","slug":"david-zaslav-reportedly-dismissed-black-superman-movie-as-too-woke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/55927\/","title":{"rendered":"David Zaslav reportedly “dismissed” Black Superman movie as “too woke”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The arrival of James Gunn\u2019s\u00a0Superman<\/a>\u00a0in theaters this weekend has put a lot of focus on the many, and frequently troubled<\/a>, attempts Warner Bros. has made over the decades to leverage the character in film. That includes a new Wall Street Journal\u00a0piece<\/a> tracking Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav\u2019s attempts to course-correct the company\u2019s whole superhero franchise around the time the DCEU was falling apart\u2014a process that included fielding big pitches from Dwayne Johnson and, apparently, dismissing a high-profile script from Ta-Naheisi Coates<\/a> that would have centered on a Black Superman on the grounds of it being \u201ctoo woke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coates\u2019 script dates back to 2021, when it was announced that he\u2019d be writing the project under the auspices of producer J.J. Abrams. (Which probably didn\u2019t help it pass muster with Zaslav, in hindsight; the studio head has not been shy about letting it be known he\u2019s not especially happy with how little he feels the studio has gotten out of its very expensive overall deal with Abrams\u2019 Bad Robot.) In addition to his work as an author and essayist, Coates is well-known for his work writing comics, having penned a critically acclaimed run on\u00a0Black Panther\u00a0in the 2010s. His\u00a0Superman\u00a0would have been, per comments made at the time<\/a>, his attempt at \u201cmeaningfully adding to the legacy of America\u2019s most iconic mythic hero.\u201d Details about the script are hard to come by\u2014the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0piece runs with the idea that it would have been a period piece set during the civil rights movement\u2014but Coates was, per a\u00a0THR\u00a0piece<\/a>, expected to turn it in some time late in 2021, with Warner Bros. hunting around for a Black director and star to team up on the film.<\/p>\n

Which runs the timeline smack into April 2022, when Zaslav took over leadership of the just-merged Warner Bros. Discovery, and started quickly looking around for a lifeboat to rescue the company\u2019s floundering superhero fortunes. At which point, per the\u00a0WSJ, \u201cHe dismissed as too woke a script being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates about a Black Superman in the civil rights era, according to people familiar with the matter.\u201d For a minute, Zaslav apparently flirted with giving Dwayne Johnson more creative control over the universe, which is presumably how we got that incredibly awkward Henry Cavill cameo in\u00a0Black Adam<\/a>\u2014conversations that ended pretty much the minute the box office returns for the movie came in. (News<\/a> that Gunn and Peter Safran would be taking over sole control over all WBD superhero production arrived literally four days after the film\u2019s premiere.)<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Gunn\u00a0has\u00a0been asked about the Coates script in the past, noting that, while he hadn\u2019t read it\u2014as of May 2023<\/a>\u2014he could imagine it existing as an out-of-continuity \u201cElseworlds\u201d movie. (Like the\u00a0Joker\u00a0films, or Matt Reeves\u2019\u00a0The Batman\u00a0movies.) The Wall Street Journal\u00a0article notes that the same sources who say Zaslav dismissed the concept said it was still possible Coates\u2019 film might someday see the light of day under Gunn and Safran\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n