David Corenswet as Superman and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Warner Bros. Pictures
When David Corenswet got the call that would change his life, it wasn’t from a studio executive or an agent — at least not one whose number he had saved. It came from a 310 Los Angeles number he didn’t recognize. Still, he had a feeling.
“I thought, ‘I should probably take this. I feel like I'm expecting a call. Good news or bad news, I'm expecting a call,’” Corenswet recalled in an interview provided to ABS-CBN News.
The voice on the other end belonged to "Superman" director James Gunn.
“David, it’s James Gunn,” he said.
For a moment, Corenswet wasn’t entirely sure. “For some reason I said, ‘Can you prove that?’” he admitted, laughing. “And he sort of laughed, appreciatively, I would say. He sort of got it and he went, ‘Well, huh, that’s a good point. Well, I’m calling to offer you the role of Superman.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’re the only person who could do that, so it must be you.’”
In that surreal moment, the Philadelphia-born actor joined a lineage of screen legends — Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, Henry Cavill — who have donned the red cape and iconic "S."
“There’s a certain level of disbelief,” Corenswet said. “You might let your mind wander to the possibility once or twice, but you don’t dare to hope.”
After a brief conversation with Gunn about his vision for the film, Corenswet was left with a sensation that was less about triumph and more about mission.
“It kind of felt like an astronaut being told he is going to the moon,” he said. “It’s like, this is what I’ve always wanted to do, but the work is all to come. Now, getting the role is this amazing win, but the win is really that you get to do the work now.”
That work — two years of it, possibly more — will culminate in 2025’s "Superman," a fresh chapter in the storied franchise that’s expected to launch the DC Universe under Gunn's leadership.
Despite being cast as the most iconic superhero in pop culture, Corenswet said he didn’t grow up immersed in Superman lore.
“I was never inundated with a particular iteration of Superman,” he said. “I definitely caught episodes of 'Smallville' after school before my parents got home (we weren't allowed to watch TV growing up), and I remember seeing 'Superman Returns' in the theaters and really loving it.”
It wasn’t until he read Gunn’s script that the vastness and versatility of the character’s mythology hit him.
“I was sort of surprised at all of these elements that were in it. I knew of Christopher Reeve and his film... and I knew Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, but when I saw James’s script, I was astonished at all of these elements that were in there that didn’t feel like they belonged in Superman’s world.”
To better understand the unexpected directions the new film would take, Gunn pointed Corenswet to two specific comic book touchstones: "All-Star Superman" and "Superman for All Seasons."
“I read those, and I thought, ‘Oh, well, all of this has been here for years and years and years. It just hasn’t been put up on the big screen yet,’” he said.
Among the surprises in the script were deep-cut characters and concepts unfamiliar to casual fans.
“Krypto and... all of these other metahumans, this world that isn’t our own,” Corenswet noted. “The Superman robots, I thought, ‘I wasn’t expecting these. I didn’t know these were a thing.’”
While details about the film’s plot remain tightly guarded, Corenswet's journey into Superman’s world is already reshaping how he sees the character — not as a distant icon, but as part of a much larger, long-evolving legacy.
“Superman’s origin is not forgotten in the movie, it’s just not the subject of the movie,” he said. “And I think we get a lot of mileage out of jumping right into the action... we get to dive right into it.”
"Superman" opens in Philippine cinemas on July 9.