Henry Cavill was a great Superman who never got a great Superman movie, and that should have been the end of it. But it’s now 2026, and we’re still talking about whether Cavill will return as the Man of Steel. With James Gunn and Peter Safran “stepping down” as DC Studios co-heads, DC’s cinematic future is very much up in the air, and now Cavill is saying he’d always be open to returning as Supes.
During an Inverse interview, the actor was asked if he’d ever play the DC hero again and seemed open to the idea. “Look, there’s lots of fantastic storylines,” he replied. “There’s always a lot of opportunity. As the pigeon sang to Fievel in ‘An American Tail,’ “never say never.” And I buy into that.” It’s hardly surprising, given that Cavill and his former DC Extended Universe colleague Dwayne Johnson once launched a pretty bizarre attempt to remain in the cinematic universe, most pointedly with 2022’s immediately forgettable “Black Adam.” At the time, Cavill proudly announced his return as Superman in a social media post following the film’s release, but it never actually amounted to anything more than that and left Gunn deeply (and understandably) confused about what was even happening.
Since then, Gunn has introduced us to an all-new Man of Steel in David Corenswet, who made his debut in the charming crowd pleaser that was 2025’s “Superman” and is set to return in the 2027 follow-up “Man of Steel.” But with Gunn out at DC Studios it remains to be seen where the Corenswet version of the character and his story will go from there. Meanwhile, we’ve got Cavill telling Inverse he “had such a wonderful time playing Superman in the past” and “would never say never now.” It’s a bit tiresome, no?
Will we ever stop talking about Henry Cavill’s Superman return?
Directly after the extremely perplexing return of Henry Cavill’s Superman in “Black Adam,” the DCEU collapsed with back to back flops in 2023. Meanwhile, James Gunn was gearing up to launch his DC Universe, which is why the whole situation left him baffled – especially since he was already actively preparing his DC reboot at the time. He wasn’t the only one, either. Audiences thought they’d seen the last of the so-called Snyderverse after 2023, but Gunn chose to soft reboot DC with a new cinematic universe that retained elements of the old one. What’s more, calls to reinstate the DCEU persist even today.
Now that Gunn and Peter Safran have been removed (er, “stepped down”) from DC Studios, it looks as though Skydance CEO David Ellison — who’s running the newly-merged Warner Bros. and Paramount — is planning to pretty much dismantle everything Gunn built at DC to prepare for yet another reboot.
Whatever Ellison and his new president and chief creative officer of DC Studios, Jeremy Latcham, have planned for the brand, I think it’s safe to say we really don’t need more talk of Cavill suiting back up. Had the actor left this character alone following 2017’s “Justice League,” it might have been a thrill to hear of his possible return a decade later. As it stands, like calls to restore the Snyderverse, this seems to be the discussion that never dies. Perhaps it’s that lingering feeling that Cavill never got the movie he deserved, or the fact that Superman remains his best-known character. But for now it would be nice to go a few years without hearing about anything from the Snyderverse era coming back.