Who Will Be the Next Superman? These Are the Frontrunners

Only a week or so after announcing that he’d be continuing in the role of Superman, Henry Cavill had to announce in December that he would not, it turns out, be dusting off the red cape once more.

“I will, after all, not be returning as Superman,” Cavill wrote on Instagram. “After being told by the studio to announce my return back in October, prior to their hire, this news isn’t the easiest, but that’s life. The changing of the guard is something that happens. I respect that. James and Peter have a universe to build. I wish them and all involved with the new universe the best of luck, and the happiest of fortunes.”

Aw man. What the Kal-El? James Gunn, the newish DC head honcho, laid out his reasoning.

“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,” he explained. “But we just had a great meeting with Henry and we're big fans and we talked about a number of exciting possibilities to work together in the future.”

It’s like when Julen Lopetegui got announced as the next Real Madrid manager about two days before he was due to lead Spain into their defence of the World Cup in 2014, then Spain sacked him before he got the chance and Madrid binned him off after he got tonked 5-1 by Barca. And now he’s at Wolves.

Anyway this might give Cavill a decent crack at being the next James Bond, though he’s already committed to trying to make a new Warhammer film happen. (We’ve had the first blond Bond. We’ve had the first Black 007. But are we ready for the first nerd Bond?)

Doing the Warhammer thing with Amazon “will give us the freedom to be true to the massive scope of Warhammer,” Cavill wrote, for which you can read ‘will wang us loads and loads of Bezos-quids’. He also promised Warhammer fans he would “respect this IP that we love”. How romantic.

Signing off as Superman after three films – one goodish, one tedious, one turgid – and a post-credits cameo, Cavill looked to the future.

“We can mourn for a bit, but then we must remember… Superman is still around,” he wrote. “Everything he stands for still exists, and the examples he sets for us are still there! My turn to wear the cape has passed, but what Superman stands for never will.”

So who’s going to take up the cape next? It’s early days, but here are the early runners and riders.

Next Superman

Michael B Jordan

Yes, obviously every director would love to whack Micky B into their mega-franchise. He’s great. But there’s a couple of things that make this feel more of a goer than most big stars you could chuck at the vacant Superman post.

Firstly, there’s the fact he’s out of the Marvel scene for the time being. A short scene in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever felt like a final farewell for Killmonger. Secondly, there’s that Superman project which was announced last year which Jordan was said to be involved in developing. Val-Zod, the adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates and JJ Abrams’ story about a Black Superman from a parallel Earth, was meant to be happening and with Jordan in the picture there were rumblings about him taking up the role.

And then we heard nothing. It’s all very DC. Things get announced, then canned, then forgotten, then remembered, then forgotten again. Val-Zod feels like it’d be a good idea, which might be the reason why it’s currently in DC’s shrug-emoji pile. But still: it could yet happen, and it’d be exactly the kind of vaulting leap for relevance which Superman needs to make.

Oscar Isaac

After calrifying that he’s not yet signed up to Marvel’s Moon Knight for another go round, there was something which stuck out in the former Poe Dameron’s promo rounds.

“The truth is, really what makes Superman interesting is Clark Kent, you know?” he said, reflecting on the difference between Marc Spector and Steven Grant in Moon Knight. “Superman without Clark Kent is just kind of all right, whatever. But it’s that dichotomy between the two things, which I think is what speaks to people so much.”

No, it’s not a pitch for the gig itself. But it is, at least, enough to get you wondering whether it might be a good idea. And do you know what? It might well be. He’s got serious acting chops, he’s got a jawline you could use as a mandoline blade, he’s got an inherently noble look. Whether he can be bothered with another massive franchise after being gradually shuffled out of the frontline of the Star Wars reboot series as the films went on, now that’s another question.

Nicholas Hoult

Now that he’s very much in the upper echelons of indie-minded big movie directors after proving his mettle in Mad Max: Fury Road, The Favourite and The Great, there’s a slightly ‘so what now?’ vibe to Nicholas Hoult’s career. He can keep doing interesting support roles in interesting films with interesting actors like in The Menu and The True History of the Kelly Gang. Sure he can. Nice little career right there if he wants it.

But at 33, he’s the right kind of age to be sizing up something seismic. Yes, that might well end up being his gig voicing Jon Arbuckle in a new Garfield reboot slated for 2024. Or, alternatively, it might be a spell in the Superman cape. Think about it: he’s handsome, he’s good at looking pensive, he’s got something very slightly alien about him. It could work.

Then again, if you’d been in the X-Men films he’s been in you’d run a mile from a gigantic franchise knocking on your door. But then again again, it is Superman.

David Corenswet

The internet at large would absolutely love for David Corenswet, late of The Politician and Hollywood as well as the excellent horror Pearl, to be Superman. And uniquely among the actors we’ve gathered up here, it sounds like he actually, genuinely, wants to have the gig.

“It came to my attention before the internet got a hold of me,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “But my pie-in-the-sky ambition is definitely to play Superman. I would love to see somebody do an upbeat, throwback [take on Superman]. I love the Henry Cavill dark and gritty take, but I would love to see the next one be very bright and optimistic.”

He’s only 29, so a good age to take things into a new era. And it’s a good pitch he makes too. Puffing out his chest, flying around the world backwards to reverse time and definitely not having a cuddle-cry with Batman about his dead mum? Sounds like a Superman we can all get on board with.

Jacob Elordi

Another mainstay of fancasting here, with Euphoria fans eagerly pitching their guy as the man to take Superman forward. And you can see their point. He’s a good actor, with soft eyes and an easy authority that belies the fact that he’s only 25. You can imagine him very calmly explaining that he’s here to protect Earth after his home planet sadly exploded. He’s also very, very, very tall, which helps when you need to look like a bulletproof alien who can fly and lift cars.

He’s not said anything himself to encourage or discourage the Superman discourse just yet. It’d be a savvy move for DC though. Knowing what we do about what Gunn and the gang intend to do with him – they want to go back into “an earlier part of Superman’s life”, remember – a very young Superman would make total sense.

And on top of that, Superman as a character is kind of neither here nor there for a lot of younger cinemagoers. After the best part of a decade trudging around in the semi-darkness of – apologies, Justice League fans – two absolutely rubbish films, he needs reintroducing and recontextualising. Picking Elordi would do that at a stroke.

Will Poulter

Another rogue English guy choice, but one who’s very much in the James Gunn mixer now that he’s appearing in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 as Adam Warlock. He’s very buff these days, far buffer than you’ll remember him being in Bandersnatch and Midsommar, and at 29 would be a solid pick to lead any new Superman saga through the next decade and a bit if he fancied it.

And yet. He’s a good-looking boy, of that there’s no doubt. But Poulter would represent quite a different look for this most clean cut, apple pie, Springsteen song about a girl and a car and Coney Island kind of American hero. It’s always been a guy with floppy brown hair, arms like serrano hams and a stern jaw. There’s something inherently quite soft, round and almost alien about Poulter’s features which might make him an odd fit. Or, alternatively, a bold new choice.

Check out our guide to who will be the new James Bond here.