James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy Ditches the “Legacy”
Just Superman. It’s cleaner.
A lot is riding on James Gunn’s Superman movie. The Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy director is now the shepherd of a new DC Universe, and the first movie in a first chapter called “Gods and Monsters” focuses on the Kryptonian synonymous with DC Comics. Recently, we learned a small but intriguing detail about the direction the film is going.
On February 29th, Kal-El’s birthday (the Leap Day being a nod to the fact that Superman doesn’t really age), James Gunn used Instagram to celebrate the start of filming and give DC fans an update on production, which has apparently evolved quite a bit.
In the post’s caption, Gunn discussed editing the script. “When I finished the first draft of the script, I called the film Superman: Legacy,” he wrote, “By the time I locked the final draft, it was clear the title was SUPERMAN. Making our way to you July 2025.”
An earlier announcement for the movie debuted a vintage-style font and color scheme which, combined with the vague Legacy subtitle, seemed to signal a nostalgic movie that would bring Superman back to his roots after the DCEU modernized him. Now, this new title suggests the story has transformed into a stripped-down, simpler version of the Superman story.
James Gunn isn’t afraid to rebrand his Superman movie.
There’s one more wrinkle here. While Gunn wrote Superman: Legacy in normal case, he wrote SUPERMAN with caps lock on. Maybe it was done for emphasis, or maybe Gunn is just really excited, but because it’s done twice in the caption, it could also be a style choice to differentiate SUPERMAN from 1978’s Superman: The Movie. We won’t really know until more information is available, but screaming SUPERMAN at fans would certainly be a good way to draw attention to DC’s new era.
A title change may seem minor, but it suggests James Gunn has been allowing his script to grow and change right up to the beginning of filming. No one would accuse the old DCU of being willing to adapt its strategy as needed, so hopefully this signals a greater flexibility in this next attempt. The DC film universe desperately needs a smart reset, and with Gunn’s careful direction, it might just get it.
