"I don’t quite understand how that fits"

The rumour mill has been in overdrive ever since it was revealed that Henry Cavill will not be continuing his journey as Superman in the DCEU.

Cavill was last seen in the role - which he first inhabited in 2013's 'Man of Steel' - in the end credits of 'Black Adam' in 2022, and had been speaking about donning the cape as recently as last year.

However, the English actor was left in an awkward position after a shake-up at DC revealed that the studio was looking to recast the character with a younger actor in the new film, 'Superman: Legacy', which was written and directed by James Gunn. Cavill took to Instagram to break the news to fans, many of whom took the shake-up as a snub.

Since then, there have been a number of theories about DC's decision to drop Cavill, but Gunn has now come out to rubbish a conspiracy that alleges he always intended to remove the actor - even before 'Black Adam'.

Fans have claimed that an interview quote from Nathan Fillion, who said that Gunn told him at the afterparty of 'The Suicide Squad' in 2021 that he would be playing the role of Guy Gardner, aka The Green Lantern - despite the fact that Gunn and Peter Safran were not installed as CEOs of DC Studios until 2022. Some claim that this is proof that Gunn and Safran were already working on the 'Superman' reboot at the time, and that plans to replace Cavill were already in motion.

However, Gunn took to Threads to claim that Fillion had gotten his facts wrong, and in fact he broke the news to him at the 'Guardians of the Galaxy 3' premiere.

"I don’t quite understand how that fits," he said. "Aside from the fact I had no interest in running DC until Peter decided to do it with me so he could do the exec stuff & I could focus on creative, when I was hired to write Superman it was always intended as & pitched as a new Superman story, so why would I lie about not planning that at the Squad premiere which would have amounted to the same thing at the end of the day? How does this particular conspiracy theory make sense?"

In any case, the new 'Superman' film will see David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

'Superman: Legacy' will be released in July 2025.