'Superman’ director James Gunn on hiring David Corenswet: 'This guy is perfect'

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LOS ANGELES — For years, James Gunn resisted DC’s pleas to try and get him to make a Superman movie. When he finally agreed, he said he could only do it if he found the right actor to play the Last Son of Krypton.

“I was offered Superman originally in 2018, and I said no. I did The Suicide Squad instead,” the writer-director said in a recent interview on the rooftop of L.A.’s futuristic-looking Wrapper building. “When they first offered it to me, I just wasn’t sure I could do it.”

After he left Marvel — where he had written and directed three Guardians of the Galaxy movies — to co-lead Warner Bros.’ newly-minted DC Studios alongside producer Peter Safran in 2022, the nudges kept coming.

“Superman was not my dream. It was Peter Safran’s dream,” Gunn, 58, said. “He’s my partner at DC, and he wanted to make a Superman movie his entire life. He would bring it up to me, constantly.”

Initially hesitant, Gunn began to see a wealth of storytelling opportunities he could indulge in as he set about refreshing DC’s oldest superhero on the big screen.

And it stuck with him. Gunn started to think about ways he could blend the character’s goodness with his own penchant for left-field humour and empathetic take on the misfit hero.

“I kept thinking, ‘How would I do Superman if I were to do it?’ Then they came back to me again with Superman before I took over at DC and I said, ‘OK, I think I’m going to try and tackle it,'” he said.

After getting to the end of his script for his new reimagining, Gunn faced another problem. “I said to Peter, ‘If I can’t find the right guy to play Superman, I’m not sure I can make the movie.'”

The thing Gunn was most worried about was casting the newest face of the classical DC superhero, who has been played onscreen by Henry Cavill, Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, Tom Welling and Tyler Hoechlin. But after the first day of sifting through the many audition reels that had landed on his desk on the Warner Bros. lot, Gunn was immediately taken with David Corenswet’s tape.

The actor, who appeared in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood as well as last summer’s Twisters, was able to tap into a vulnerability Gunn hadn’t seen in any of the previous iterations.

“When we saw him, we said, ‘Oh my God, he’s got such a Superman face!’” Gunn recalled.

Corenswet was also able to display a kind of inherent goodness from the comics that Gunn hopes translates to the big screen when the film flies into theatres this week.

“At the end of the day, the world doesn’t always seem to have so much good in it and this movie has to truly be that,” Gunn said.

The second audition I saw was David Corenswet and I went, 'Oh my God, this guy is perfect.'

James Gunn on casting David Corenswet to play the Man of Steel

With Corenswet in place, Gunn recruited Rachel Brosnahan to join the reboot as love interest Lois Lane. British actor Nicholas Hoult — who also auditioned to play Superman — was then cast as Supes’ arch-enemy Lex Luthor.

Then he added Superman’s trusty dog Krypto to the story. The rambunctious pooch comes to his master’s aid in the very first scene in the movie and he’s barking and yelping right to the end. Krypto merch is likely to be a hot seller this summer.

“I thought (including Krypto) was a way to say we’re embracing all of the Superman mythology,” Gunn said. “Superhero movies have a way of taking these characters and saying. ‘OK, it’s Superman, but it’s not any of the other stuff’ … In our (version) … Superman’s got a flying dog and a giant fortress that springs from the ground. And he fights giant monsters.”

Gunn’s new Superman movie will be the first step as DC sets about revamping its superhero slate with a new series of interconnected films, television shows, comic books and video games.

The film follows Corenswet’s Clark Kent/Superman in a new adventure that skips his origin story altogether as it focuses on the titular hero grappling with his powers while trying to blend in as a journalist at the Daily Planet.

As Superman is drawn into a global conflict, Luthor plans to lure him into a trap and vanquish him once and for all.

The film co-stars Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (as the Green Lantern member Guy Gardner), Wendell Pierce (Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White), Frank Grillo (Rick Flag, Sr), María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer), and Christopher Reeve’s son Will Reeve in a cameo. 

With Superman in the books, the DCU continues its Gods and Monsters phase with Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, starring Milly Alcock, next summer. Down the line is Lanterns, a new TV series based on the Green Lantern comics, as well as new iterations of Batman and Wonder Woman.

In a prior interview with Postmedia, Gunn said he was intrigued to help spearhead the DC Studios because he wanted to be a part of “getting to tell the biggest story ever told.” It’s a job that’s likely to keep him busy churning out stories for the next decade.

Below, Gunn, who is already hard at work writing the next chapter in DC’s nascent cinematic universe, spoke more about finding the perfect Superman in Corenswet, why this Lex Luthor is the scariest one we’ve seen so far and opined about the character’s enduring appeal.

We met six years ago on the set of The Suicide Squad and you looked like you were having a ball. What was your first day like shooting Superman?

Cold! We were shooting in Svalbard, Norway, which is an island north of Norway in the Arctic. It was one of the first shots you see in the movie where David Corenswet is lying in the snow and the camera pushes down in on him and he whistles (summoning Krypto). It was a very difficult shot; David was very cold; he had to lie in the snow … But I knew right away he was going to be a trooper for the rest of the movie because he put up with it.

People have seen that scene from the trailer and that’s when we first meet Superman’s dog Krypto. How did you decide to put Krypto in the movie?

I had rescued my dog, Ozu. He was in hoarding situation. This woman had 60 dogs in her backyard and …. they kind of just lived on top of each other and he had never known human beings. I went to the rescue organization and I saw him and he had this cocky ear (one ear up and one ear down) and this goofy look on his face and I said, ‘I want that dog.’ I brought him home, and he was a terrible, terrible dog. He wouldn’t let my wife or I touch him. He was constantly biting my feet until they bled. He ate my $10,000 laptop … He destroyed all my shoes; destroyed all our furniture. He was just an absolute nightmare of a dog and I thought, ‘Thank God he doesn’t have super powers.’ And that’s where I got the idea for Krypto (being this) terrible dog, even though he’s always been pretty good in the comics. So that’s where he started. He’s based on my dog. We 3D-modelled my dog … and it was my entryway into this magical world of DC with flying dogs, kaijus, robots, magic, and science so extreme it almost seems like magic. It’s one of the things I think we bring to Superman that’s different from other iterations.

Before coming here to speak to you, I looked at my bookshelf and saw all the different Superman comics I own — Superman Unchained, All-Star Superman, Superman: Year One, The Man of Steel, Superman: Earth One — and it got me thinking about the longevity of the character and why he never seems to go out of style.

I think because everyone processes him in a different way whatever age he’s in. But he has kind of gone in and out of style. His comics have been more and less popular — they’re popular right now, but over the past few years he’s been eclipsed by Batman. Some of the movies have done better than other movies. They all do pretty well, because he’s Superman. I think that it’s been a wild ride. But he’s still the world’s first superhero. He’s the one we think of as the most positive superhero, so I think that’s something people are always going to be attracted to.

How did you settle on David to play Superman?

I was really lucky because when I was done with the script and Peter and I decided to start casting … I needed to find somebody that looked like Superman. I needed someone who had the dramatic chops; I needed someone with the comedic chops; and I needed someone who could deliver fast-paced dialogue as it was written in the script. I also had to have somebody who was athletic enough to do all the incredibly complex work we were doing … to shoot the flying in the way that I envisioned. And I was so blessed because the second audition I saw was David Corenswet and I went, ‘Oh my God, this guy is perfect.’

Nicholas’ Lex is my favourite version of that villain so far.

Mine too. I think we get to the core of who Lex is and why he hates Superman so much and I think it makes so much sense. The other thing I like about Nick as Lex, and the character in this movie, is he’s a real threat. This isn’t a Lex Luthor who is only getting his way because he’s threatening the life of someone. He’s smart and he has figured out how to murder Superman, and that makes him a pretty scary character.

So, we started with the first day. What was the last day on set like knowing what’s ahead and all the other storylines that you’ve dreamt up?

I’m never very comfortable with goodbyes. I kind of dread endings. Everybody’s crying and it was a great shoot, but I’m exhausted and I just want to go home and see my wife and dog. So, endings are difficult. Beginnings are easy for me, but endings are very difficult.

Superman opens in theatres July 11.

mdaniell@postmedia.com