James Gunn is shutting down a fan conspiracy theory that he always planned to remove Henry Cavill from the DCEU.
Amid the shooting of the new Superman film and the second season of Peacemaker, Gunn finds time to answer fan inquiries on social media.
A fan shared a quote from Nathan Fillion about how he found out he was cast as Green Lantern in the new DC film, which will be released in 2025.
“We were actually at the premiere party after Suicide Squad and he [Gunn] was in a huge crowd of people,” Fillion said in an interview with Collider. “…He goes, ‘Hey, did Peter [Safran] tell you what we’ve got for you next?’ I said, ‘No, he hasn’t said.’ He looked around like someone was gonna be listening. We were in a throng of people, but he leaned over and said, ‘You’re gonna be Guy Gardner.’”
DC fans took Fillion’s words as Gunn already working on the reboot of the DCEU since the release of The Suicide Squad in 2021, more than a year before he and Peter Safran were named co-CEOs of DC Studios in October 2022.
However, Gunn clarified on Threads that Fillion misspoke, which meant he found out about his Green Lantern casting during the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premiere party.
Gunn went on to clarify the rumor that he always intended to replace Cavill as Superman since he helmed The Suicide Squad.
“I don’t quite understand how that fits,” he shared on Threads. “Aside from the fact I had no interest in running DC until Peter decided to do it with me so he could do the exec stuff & I could focus on creative, when I was hired to write Superman it was always intended as & pitched as a new Superman story, so why would I lie about not planning that at the Squad premiere which would have amounted to the same thing at the end of the day? How does this particular conspiracy theory make sense?”
Amid the DC Studios executive shakeup, Cavill reprised his role as Superman in an end credits scene from 2022’s Black Adam. However, when Gunn and Safran took over DC and planned to reboot the universe, they announced they would be recasting Superman.
David Corenswet was cast as the new Superman, with filming already underway. The film also stars Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer. The ensemble includes Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Sean Gunn, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Isabel Merced and Fillion.