The first trailer for writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman,” which premiered on Thursday morning, marks the official debut of the new Man of Steel as played by David Corenswet, as well as the love of Superman’s life, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), and Superman’s archenemy, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).
Speaking with Variety after a special preview of the trailer on the Warner Bros. lot on Dec. 17, Corenswet said the opportunity to finally show off what he’d been working on for over a year and a half was “the best thing ever,” but he shrugged when asked what it was like to see himself as Superman with an audience for the first time.
“I just disassociate,” Corenswet said. “It’s not me up there. It’s Superman. It’s Clark Kent. What’s cool is seeing all your friends up there.”
He’s not just talking about Brosnahan and Hoult, either. When Gunn and his fellow DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran first announced their slate in January 2023, they made clear that their reboot of Superman would also officially reboot the DC Universe as a fully unified creative endeavor that would capture the rich breadth of characters established over nearly 90 years within the wider DC Comics. (The animated DC series “Creature Commandos,” which is currently streaming on Max, is meant to be a “soft intro” to the DCU — an appetizer to “Superman’s” main course.)
In practice, that means that for the first time in live-action, the “Superman” movie franchise is launching in the same cinematic universe as dozens upon dozens of metahumans and super-powered creatures that range from famous in their own right to totally obscure to the general public. Imagine Christopher Reeve’s Superman flying in the first “Superman” movie next to Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and Blue Beetle — or Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark fighting in the first “Iron Man” movie alongside Doctor Strange, Shang-Chi and Wanda Maximoff. The filmmakers and studios behind those earlier comic book movies believed audiences could only handle one superhero at a time. But thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, filmgoers have been conditioned to accept a movie in which a multitude of superheroes occupy the screen at the same time.
And good gravy, are there are a lot of them in the first look at Gunn’s new film. Here’s a list of 17 DC characters and Easters eggs — from Superman’s dog Krypto to Stagg Industries — tucked inside the “Superman” trailer.