It probably goes without saying that the DCEU Superman movies starring Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel aren’t particularly great. It’s not entirely his fault of course as you can only do so much with the material you’re given and when said material is a turd, well, you can only polish it so much before you realise it’s still a turd.
Henry Cavill is busy working on The Witcher now but still holds the Superman character dear to his heart. As for the movies though, that’s a different matter.
Chatting to Men’s Health about his time in the DCEU, Cavill manages to be simultaneously shady yet also professional in critiquing the three films he’s portrayed Superman in.
For his first outing, Man of Steel, Cavill had nothing but nice words: “A great starting point. If I were to go back, I don’t think I’d change anything.” Fair enough, it was his big debut after all and it did well enough.
But when asked about the dumpster fire that was Batman v Superman, he says it was “very much a Batman movie. And I think that realm of darkness is great for a Batman movie,” which is basically another way of saying, it’s crappiness has nothing to do with me or Superman.
And when the god awful Justice League came up, he bluntly said “It didn’t work.” Well there’s no need to dig into any potential subtext in that answer, though you can bet your arse that hardcore DCEU fanboys will use this as ammunition to keep pushing that stupid “Snyder Cut” movement forward.
While he’s not a fan of two of the three DCEU films he’s been in, it seems like Henry Cavill isn’t giving up the Superman cape just yet. When asked about potentially being replaced with a younger model, he says he hasn’t “given up the role.”
“There’s a lot I have to give for Superman yet. A lot of storytelling to do. A lot of real, true depths to the honesty of the character I want to get into. I want to reflect the comic books. That’s important to me. There’s a lot of justice to be done for Superman. The status is: You’ll see.”
Oh we shall see alright but it looks like we’ll be waiting for a bit given his involvement with The Witcher and the Superman-less slate of confirmed DCEU films.
But hey, maybe the time between Superman films will benefit everyone as the filmmakers might finally be able to get a good script together, which in turn will mean the final product won’t be subjected to another polite yet scathing Henry Cavill critique.