What Went Wrong With DCEU & Henry Cavill’s Superman

While this is undoubtedly exciting news, it also highlights one of the major problems that the DCEU still can’t seem to overcome. Seeing more Superman is always a good thing, but reducing him to glorified cameos seems like an admission that the DCEU doesn’t know how to make a contemporary Superman movie work, and reinforces the claims that the franchise has failed both the character and Henry Cavill.

The DCEU Never Fully Embraced A Clear Direction For Superman

Despite the first film in the DCEU being a Superman adaptation, there has always been a long-standing criticism that the filmmakers involved refused to approach Superman from a traditional standpoint. With the success of The Dark Knight Trilogy in their rearview mirror, Warner Bros. wanted to carry Nolan’s grounded atmosphere over to their next superhero outing. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with re-contextualizing characters and contemporizing them for the modern-day, but these changes usually take place within the established framework of who that character is.

It seems that, instead of striking the same tone as Superman films of the past, and finding a way to fit it into a modern-day adaptation, Zack Snyder put him on a darker arc, intending to end up at a more optimistic place after a multi-movie arc. The initial take, including Superman killing Zod, took many people aback, and following up with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice seemed to double down on that tone. While Snyder says Superman was on a journey and was intended to a more traditional take on the character, Warner Bros. massive rewrites and reshoots mean that arc was interrupted, turning Superman into a paper-thin caricature of the kind of one-liners some critics wanted. It remains to be seen if Zack Snyder’s Justice League will win over detractors when it comes to Superman’s arc, but so far, the franchise’s inability to lay out a clear intent for the character leaves him in a very confusing place.

Henry Cavill’s Superman Wasn’t Given Good Enough Material

Even beyond the criticisms regarding Snyder’s vision of Superman’s moral compass, the movies themselves simply didn’t give Cavill much to work with as an actor. While he isn’t necessarily a chameleon actor, Henry Cavill is a solid performer who is more than capable of playing stoic action heroes such as Geralt of Rivia. His performance as Superman feels commanding and powerful, someone you could truly see leading a group of heroes like the Justice League, and his physique is arguably the most accurate out of all the actors to play Superman. The only problem is that the films don’t really give his character much to do.

In all fairness, Man of Steel genuinely tried to give audiences a complex and nuanced portrayal of a Clark Kent grappling with the weight of his responsibility to the world. Though the dialogue felt ham-fisted and the symbolism was a little less than subtle at times, the movie had a laser-focus on the events that shaped Clark into who he is. The theatrical version of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice seemed to abandon all interest in Superman as an actual character and began treating him more as a plot device. The extra 30 minutes in the Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition gives Clark a lot more to do, but again, given the fact that the studio found that story beats disposable for theaters left Superman feeling under-baked leading into Justice League.

It’s evident from the very beginning of the film that Snyder has more of an interest in this version of Batman than he does in continuing Superman’s story. In the movie’s theatrical cut, Superman only receives a total of 43 lines, and while line count isn’t exactly the best way to determine a character’s contribution to a film, BvS’ Superman only exists to advance the plot along. The film results in his death, after only two films in which he’s featured, and his return in Justice League abandons any throughline from Batman v Superman or Man of Steel in favor of a wholly unearned version of the character who was supposed to be full of “hope and optimism” but ended up just feeling empty.

Superman Was A Victim Of The DCEU’s Bad Planning

If the poor writing of Superman in the films wasn’t a problem in and of itself, Cavill’s character was also subjected to a constant game of push and pull between the filmmakers as well as the executives at Warner Bros. Man of Steel was released in 2013, 7 years ago, and to this very day there has been seemingly no indication that we will ever get a true sequel to the film. Snyder’s DCEU plan was supposed to be a 5-part Superman story, so a proper Man of Steel 2 was never in the cards, but even after WB moved away from his plan, there was seemingly no motion on getting another Superman solo movie off the ground.

Justice League was promised to transform Superman’s characterization in the films up until that point, but Zack Snyder tragically stepped down from the project back in May of 2017 due to a personal family tragedy. In turn, Warner Bros. brought on Avengers-director Joss Whedon to finish the project in an un-credited capacity, dramatically changing the tone and several sub-plots. This resulted in Superman’s character arc from Man of Steel to the theatrical cut of Justice League feeling disjointed and broken, and as a result of the critical and commercial failure of the film’s theatrical cut, Cavill’s Superman was sidelined in the DCEU.

BvS’ “Martha” And Justice League’s Reshoots Turned Superman Into A Joke

Although audiences weren’t 100% on board with Cavill’s Superman in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, had Zack Snyder gotten to finish Justice League in his original creative capacity, he might have been able to win over even his most ardent critics. The filmmaker promised a captivating character arc for Superman over the course of those three films, one that brought him closer to the version of the Man of Tomorrow presented within the comics. However, instead of being left with a more comic-accurate version of Superman, the theatrical cut of Justice League unintentionally made the public image of DCEU Superman worse, with all of the attention focused on Cavill’s butchered CGI-mustache.

While the Martha scene from Batman v. Superman lives on in infamy to this day, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the backlash to the uncanny valley CGI that left Cavill nearly unwatchable in Justice League. On top of this, the movie falls straight into cartoonish levels of camp by trying to awkwardly force Superman to become more jovial and optimistic, instead of building to it naturally. Superman’s treatment in the theatrical cut of Justice League is further evidence that Warner Bros. never really knew how to handle a contemporary version of the character, and while their recent announcements are a step in the right direction, one can only hope that they find a way to get it right in time to finally make Man of Steel 2.