As seen in the trailers, James Gunn’s “Superman” film will follow the likes of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne in that David Corenswet’s Kal-El/Clark Kent will already be a costumed hero as the film begins (albeit still fairly new at the gig).
As a result, we won’t see Jor-El sending his baby to Earth and Krypton exploding, as in so many other Superman origin films and TV series.
It’s a deliberate choice of Gunn’s, the DC Studios chief telling The Times that there are three key moments in superhero lore that he has no desire to see done on screen again. He explains:
“I don’t need to see pearls in a back alley when Batman’s parents are killed. I don’t need to see the radioactive spider biting Spider-Man. I don’t need to see baby Kal coming from Krypton in a little baby rocket”
All three moments have been adapted to screen multiple times. The image of Martha Wayne’s pearl necklace being torn and the pearls hitting the sidewalk, a metaphor for Bruce’s shattered childhood and first appearing in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” is so inexorably linked to the moment in screen adaptations that it routinely gets parodied and ridiculed.
Gunn also spoke with the outlet about how his “Superman” film is relevant in the current political climate in the United States:
“I mean, Superman is the story of America. An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost…obviously there will be jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness. But screw them.
This Superman does seem to come at a particular time when people are feeling a loss of hope in other people’s goodness. I’m telling a story about a guy who is uniquely good, and that feels needed now because there is a meanness that has emerged due to cultural figures being mean online. No, I don’t make films to change the world, but if a few people could be just a bit nicer after this it would make me happy.”
Gunn’s “Superman” is set to hit cinemas on July 11th.
