Now that it has a Clark Kent, Superman: Legacy casts a bunch of other DC superheroes

Nathan Fillion has joined the cast of a Superman movie that will also feature a Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific

By Sam Barsanti  |  July 12, 2023 | 2:19am
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Now that it has a Clark Kent, Superman: Legacy casts a bunch of other DC superheroes
Nathan Fillion (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for American Cinematheque), Isabela Merced (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Armani beauty), Edi Gathegi (JC Olivera/Getty Images) Photo: The A.V. Club

When James Gunn announced back in December that he was working on a new Superman movie—not called Superman: Legacy—that would not feature Henry Cavill in the cape and tights, the director/co-head of DC Studios explained that the movie would be focusing on an “earlier part of Superman’s life.” The implication was that Gunn would be doing some kind of back-to-basics Superman origin movie to establish what the Man Of Steel’s place in his new DC universe would be, and when David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan were cast as the new Clark Kent and Lois Lane a few weeks ago, casting Lex Luthor and Jimmy Olsen was supposedly the next priority for DC Studios.

But apparently that’s not the case, because Gunn and DC Studios skipped over Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, and any number of other obvious Superman characters in favor of casting three additional superheroes instead. As revealed by Vanity Fair, Nathan Fillion has joined the cast as Guy Gardner, the jerk-ass Green Lantern who famously once got knocked out by Batman with one punch (one punch!). Joining him will be Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, the star-crossed lover of Hawkman (last seen in Black Adam), and Edi Gathegi as super-genius sphere-haver Mister Terrific (played by Echo Kellum in the Arrowverse).

Isabela Merced previously played the live-action Dora The Explorer in Dora And The Lost City Of Gold, while Gathegi was in Twilight and played Darwin in X-Men: First Class. Fillion, of course, is a mainstay of James Gunn’s films, having recently appeared in The Suicide Squad (which is apparently non-canonical in the new DC universe) and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3.

We don’t know how these three will factor into the plot of Superman: Legacy, but this changes pretty much everything we thought we knew about the movie. If it’s a back-to-basics Superman origin, then it’ll be a pretty weird one, and it’s no longer a given that characters like Lex Luthor or Jimmy Olsen (or Ma and Pa Kent or Perry White or whatever) will even show up.

We also can’t resist noting that casting so many additional superheroes for a movie about Superman seems like the kind of mistake that the old DC movies would make pretty regularly, and while Gunn hopefully has some better idea of what he’s doing here… we don’t know for a fact that he does just yet. People seem to want another movie about Superman, but will they be interested in a movie about Superman that also has Guy Gardner in it for some reason?

 
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