Cavill revealed he got the “sad news” following a meeting with the new heads of DC.
It is all go and all change over at Warner Brothers when it comes to the future of its DC Extended Universe.
They recently installed James Gunn and Peter Safran as the new co-heads of the DCEU, which has already seen some major implications, including the reported cancellation of a third Wonder Woman movie.
Another big change now is the removal of Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman, despite announcing in October – before the new DC heads were put in place – that he would in fact be back for a Man Of Steel sequel.
Cavill, who hadn’t played Superman since 2017’s Justice League (not including the 2021 version of that same movie), appeared in a post-credits sequence at the end of this year’s Black Adam, which had Dwayne Johnson very excited for the two characters to properly face off on the big screen.
However, on early Thursday morning, Cavill took to his Instagram account to confirm that he would not be back as Superman.
Cavill wrote:
“I will, after all, not be returning as Superman. After being told by the studio to announce my return back in October, prior to [Gunn and Safran’s] hire, this news isn’t the easiest, but that’s life. The changing of the guard is something that happens. I respect that.”
You can check out Cavill’s full post here:
View this post on Instagram
Among the replies on Instagram to the news were his Justice League co-star Jason Momoa, Shazam star Zachery Levi, and Enola Holmes co-star Sam Claflin, who all expressed their commiserations for how things panned out.
James Gunn took to Twitter to give a little more backstory to the reason behind the lack of Cavill’s return, which sees the DCEU going in a new direction with Clark Kent for the next movie:
Among those on the slate is Superman. In the initial stages, our story will be focusing on an earlier part of Superman's life, so the character will not be played by Henry Cavill.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 15, 2022
This news also comes off the back of Cavill being replaced by Liam Hemsworth in Netflix’s hit series The Witcher, and the clearing of his plate of so many other big productions has led many to believe that it will eventually lead to Cavill being named as the new James Bond.
Whether that pans out or not, we can next expect to see the actor in 2023’s Argylle, in which he plays “the world’s greatest spy, who gets caught up in a globe-trotting adventure.” Sounds… familiar.
Argylle is directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman, Kick-Ass), and will co-star Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, and Cavill rocking one of the more notable hairdos of recent years…
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