Henry Cavill Is Still Keen For His Superman Return In The DC Universe
At this point, the zigs and zags Warner Bros. took on its way to delivering the first three movies in the DC mainline Universe — "Man of Steel," "Batman v Superman," and the entire saga surrounding "Justice League" — are the stuff of legend. With the HBO Max release of "Zack Snyder's Justice League," fans at least were given the opportunity for some sense of closure ... even if director Zack Snyder has admitted that there won't be any more direct sequels to his film. The DC franchise has moved forward to several new standalone films and franchises, while the stars of the Justice League have done the same. Well, almost all of them.
Henry Cavill has found quite a bit of post-DC success, commencing the Great Mustache Controversy with his villainous turn in "Mission: Impossible – Fallout," leading Netflix's immensely popular "The Witcher" series, and even setting his sights on the "Highlander" reboot. However, much like Andrew Garfield with Spider-Man, Cavill's simmering passion for portraying Superman has been readily apparent ever since he first put on the cape. By his own admission, he may not quite be ready to take it off just yet.
Darkness and Redemption
Henry Cavill still feels like he has some unfinished business with the character of Superman. And honestly, who could blame him? This certainly isn't the first time that Cavill has made his feelings known about wanting to jump at the chance to play Superman once more. This time, the actor is reminiscing about the overall arc the superhero underwent in the three main Snyder-directed DC films and how "keen" he still remains to see it through to completion ... as unlikely as that may be.
In a profile with GQ Spain (via Comic Book), Cavill took a moment to chart the unique approach to Superman from "Man of Steel," "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," "Zack Snyder's Justice League," and beyond:
"I was very keen on really fleshing out Superman's early stages of his journey first. We had 'Man of Steel,' and then we went quite a bit darker with 'Batman v Superman.' And if he were to succumb to the Anti-Life Equation and become bad Superman [in 'Justice League' sequels], I really wanted to make sure that we saw the hero Superman and we saw the true symbol of hope, the beacon of light, before we went down the path of darkness and then redemption."
Cavill, of course, is referring to the glimpses of the post-apocalyptic future we repeatedly see throughout both "Batman v Superman" and "Zack Snyder's Justice League," in which the death of Lois Lane (Amy Adams) sets Superman off on the darkest imaginable path. While these elements caused plenty of backlash among Superman purists and even general audiences who didn't expect such an unconventional approach, it makes a certain amount of sense to counterbalance all that grit and edge with an ultimately more hopeful and traditional Superman in the end.
For better or worse, we'll likely never see Snyder's grand plans come to fruition, but Superman himself doesn't seem to be giving up just yet. As he adds, "It's still something that I'm very keen to flesh out."