By Bronte Coy
More than 10 years – and plenty of false starts – since Henry Cavill donned the Superman suit in Man of Steel, the long-awaited new era of the beloved franchise is about to begin.
Directed by famed superhero filmmaker James Gunn and starring David Corenswet in the titular role, Superman will hit cinemas this month, showing a brand new side of Clark Kent and his alter ego.
Nicholas Hoult appears as the villain Lex Luthor while The Marvellous Mrs Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan is his love interest, Lois Lane.
But in the year 2025, one question plagued the director: would a modern-day Superman still be wearing trunks – aka underwear – on the outside of his pants?
“When you’re lucky enough to get hired for a movie like this, you don’t open your mouth too early with your opinions,” Corenswet, 31, told news.com.au at the Superman fan event in London.
“But I remember the first costume fitting, I remember the moment James [Gunn] looked at me and said, ‘What do you think? Trunks or no trunks?’”
The actor added that Gunn, previously the director of Guardians of the Galaxy and now CEO of DC Studios, had been stuck deliberating over it for some time. Superman’s look, after all, is the centrepiece of the character.
The trunks are a key feature of the original character – but after trying “a billion different versions with the trunks”, Man of Steel director Zack Snyder had ultimately scrapped them, unable to make the work for the 2013 film.
Gunn had apparently found himself in the same boat.
“I felt so grateful that he really meant it, he’d thought a lot about it and he just wasn’t sure – and I told him that I thought part of the reason Superman wears the trunks is because they look a little bit silly, they’re a little disarming for people who might be intimidated or think that he takes himself really seriously,” Corenswet recalled.
“So that was the beginning of what turned out to be a really wonderful collaboration.”
For his part, Gunn told news.com.au that recruiting Corenswet to helm the new era in the hugely popular franchise was an easy choice.
“At the end of the day, it’s about the fact that he’s a really good actor and he’s a nice person. Those are the two things that are necessary for me when casting somebody,” he explained, noting that the new instalment in the Superman saga is going to show a more “intimate” side of the legendary character.
“This is about Superman and the way he looks at himself – he finds out some things about himself he didn’t know and he has to process that and recontextualise his whole personality … so it’s a personal struggle.”
Gun added: “It’s also different [than the previous films and TV series] because I love Superman comic books and this is much more based off the comic books … so we enter the big, beautiful world of the DCU with giant monsters and robots and flying dogs and sorcery and all the other cool things.”
Superman will hit cinemas in Australia next Thursday, July 10.