Superman has a lot to squeeze in. Following the various trailer reveals, fans had wondered how Superman would do justice to its expanding supporting cast. The rebooted DC Universe kickstarter revolves around a trio of characters: Clark Kent / Superman, Lois Lane, and central antagonist Lex Luther, but there are a number of other superheroes and supervillains confirmed to appear in the summer blockbuster.
On top of this, the events of Superman take place in a fictional world in which superheroes and villains are already established. Superman has been doing the Superman thing for a few years by the time we meet him, and there’s no need for origin stories for the likes of Mister Terrific, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Metamorpho.
So, is writer and director James Gunn concerned about causing confusion by dropping the audience in the middle of a fully formed world already filled with superheroes and villains?
In an interview with Esquire Philippines, Gunn said early screenings had proven this not to be a problem.
“No not really, because I’ve screened the movie for so many people and saw that people aren’t confused,” he said. “So I know from fact that it’s not confusing.”
Gunn went on to say that Superman just has two sets of friends in the movie: his work friends and his play friends. Who fits into which group is up for debate, of course, but the supporting characters should just be treated like the friends of any other movie’s protagonist.
“We’re used to seeing movies with protagonists and Superman is definitely the protagonist of Superman, and he has his work friends and he has his play friends,” Gunn said.
“Now, I don’t know if the Justice Gang are his play friends, or his work friends at the Daily Planet are his work friends or his play friends, but that’s the two groups of his friends from different places. And just because they have insignias on their costumes or superpowers doesn’t mean they’re not like any other supporting character in any movie.”
Gunn then pointed to the Oscar-winning, three-hour biopic Oppenheimer as having more characters to contend with than Superman: “I think Oppenheimer has three times as many speaking roles as we do,” he said. “So I think people are fine.”
Speaking of runtime, Superman, which hits theaters July 11, clocks in at 2 hours 9 minutes inclusive of credits and post-credits. For context, that’s 15 minutes shorter than Henry Cavill’s 2013 film, Man of Steel.
All the characters revealed so far in Superman:
- Superman
- Lois Lane
- Lex Luthor
- Mister Terrific
- Guy Gardner
- Hawkgirl
- Metamorpho
- Baby Joey
- The Engineer
- The Hammer of Boravia
- Ultraman
- Rick Flag Sr.
- Supergirl
- Maxwell Lord
- Kryptonian robots, including Kelex
- Krypto
- Jonathan Kent
- Martha Kent
- Perry White
- Jimmy Olsen
- Steve Lombard
- Cat Grant
- Ron Troupe
- Eve Teschmacher
- Otis
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
