Coates’ script dates back to 2021, when it was announced that he’d be writing the project under the auspices of producer J.J. Abrams. (Which probably didn’t help it pass muster with Zaslav, in hindsight; the studio head has not been shy about letting it be known he’s not especially happy with how little he feels the studio has gotten out of its very expensive overall deal with Abrams’ Bad Robot.) In addition to his work as an author and essayist, Coates is well-known for his work writing comics, having penned a critically acclaimed run on Black Panther in the 2010s. His Superman would have been, per comments made at the time, his attempt at “meaningfully adding to the legacy of America’s most iconic mythic hero.” Details about the script are hard to come by—the Wall Street Journal piece runs with the idea that it would have been a period piece set during the civil rights movement—but Coates was, per a THR piece, expected to turn it in some time late in 2021, with Warner Bros. hunting around for a Black director and star to team up on the film.
Which runs the timeline smack into April 2022, when Zaslav took over leadership of the just-merged Warner Bros. Discovery, and started quickly looking around for a lifeboat to rescue the company’s floundering superhero fortunes. At which point, per the WSJ, “He dismissed as too woke a script being written by Ta-Nehisi Coates about a Black Superman in the civil rights era, according to people familiar with the matter.” For a minute, Zaslav apparently flirted with giving Dwayne Johnson more creative control over the universe, which is presumably how we got that incredibly awkward Henry Cavill cameo in Black Adam—conversations that ended pretty much the minute the box office returns for the movie came in. (News that Gunn and Peter Safran would be taking over sole control over all WBD superhero production arrived literally four days after the film’s premiere.)
Interestingly, Gunn has been asked about the Coates script in the past, noting that, while he hadn’t read it—as of May 2023—he could imagine it existing as an out-of-continuity “Elseworlds” movie. (Like the Joker films, or Matt Reeves’ The Batman movies.) The Wall Street Journal article notes that the same sources who say Zaslav dismissed the concept said it was still possible Coates’ film might someday see the light of day under Gunn and Safran’s leadership.
