“This isn’t about looking back”: James Gunn Reveals the Reason Behind Superman Title Change

James Gunn’s Superman starring David Corenswet is one of the highly anticipated movies from DC Studios. It’s going to serve as the first film in the DC Universe and is a soft reboot of the Superman film series. The audience is going to witness Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human heritage.

When James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios, the two of them worked on building DC Studios. Later, it was revealed that Gunn was working on a Superman movie. It was initially titled Superman: Legacy and the name was dropped in February 2024. The filmmaker and co-CEO of DC Studios has revealed why he decided to change the title.

James Gunn explains why ‘Legacy’ was dropped from Superman

As DC Studios gears up for the release of DC Universe’s first movie, Superman, which is going to see David Corenswet as the titular character, filmmaker James Gunn gets honest about the title change.

In his recent interview with IGN, Gunn shared that the title ‘Superman: Legacy’ was inspired by suggestions from a ‘pre-mortem’ held before they started filming.

Gunn added that the intention with the initial title was to raise any potential future issues with the film before they had a chance to happen. He commented on the title change as Legacy was dropped:

One of the things was I thought maybe the title had a looking-back feeling about it. And this isn’t about looking back; this is about looking forward, so when you see the movie, you’ll understand where Legacy comes from.

He further noted that it is about Clark and his relationship with his Kryptonian parents and with his human parents. So whose legacy is it really? James Gunn praised his team, adding that their pre-mortem, where the department heads are free to speak their minds, helped him figure out the title change.

During the interview, Gunn clarified that Superman is not a platform to tease the upcoming movies in the DC Universe. He explained that he wants this movie to be able to stand on its own without fans worrying about having seen anything else prior or wondering what comes next.

The filmmaker wants to keep things as simple as possible so that the audience, who are excited to watch the movie, are not worried about the ‘homework.’ He is very excited for the audience to watch it.

James Gunn opens up about casting David Corenswet as Superman

In his conversation with IGN, James Gunn addressed one of the most thought-provoking questions: what was special about David Corenswet as Superman?

Gunn shared that his goal whenever he’s working on a movie is to find the absolute best actor for the role, not necessarily the biggest name. He shared,

I’ve always believed that the casting is the most important and that as long as the actor is the best possible actor for that role, that’s more important than it is for a name.

Co-CEO of DC Studios further explained that a lot of people had auditioned for the titular character, and he was crazily nervous about getting the movie ready. He recalled that he had seen Corenswet in Pearl, so he asked for his tape. And after watching his and Rachel Brosnahan’s tape, he was assured that they were going to be okay.

There were other really good actors for both of those roles, but at the end of the day, it was both of them as individuals. When I cast two leads together and they all come together, we have this 15-minute-long scene that they have to act together and talk and just communicate.

For Corenswet and Brosnahan, he mixed and matched all the different couples and mentioned that it was ‘simple magic’ when the two of them came up. James Gunn said that it was one of his greatest moments in filmmaking.

He also mentioned that he was looking for an actor who is not only good as Superman or Clark Kent, but is also able to find a subtle ground between the two to bring it to life. He lastly added it’s not just Clark or just Superman, but it’s Clark/Superman.

Superman is scheduled for release on July 11, 2025.