This Superman reboot leak could change the DCEU forever

The live-action Superman reboot may not be as separate from the DCEU as fans think.

The upcoming Warner Bros. project was only recently announced, but there are already conversations sprouting up online speculating what the film’s place will be in the studio’s current DCEU franchise, the existing Superman mythos, and the comic book movie genre as a whole. Now, a sketchy new online rumor about the film may reveal its surprising connections to the cinematic DC Universe at large.

The Rumor — These new Superman reboot rumors come to us courtesy of an unverified Reddit post, so make sure to take what’s said in the post with a massive grain of salt.

Reddit user u/GreenBallerina claims to be a screenwriter working on a script for Warner Bros., whose connections to the studio allowed them to learn some early details about the J.J. Abrams-produced and Ta-Nehisi Coates-penned Superman film. The user says that Coates is still working on the script for the film and that it will follow a Black Superman, as was previously rumored.

However, the Redditor goes on to state that the film’s lead character will not be Clark Kent/Kal-El, but another Kryptonian who survived the planet’s extinction like Clark did.

Most interesting of all, though, is the user’s claim that the film will take place in the current DCEU and will not be separate like 2019’s Joker or Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman. The film’s lead character — whoever they are — will apparently exist within the same universe as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, according to this Redditor.

Although Henry Cavill’s Clark Kent won’t be the film’s lead either, the user also says that the character will be inspired to start engaging in the world because of the actions of Cavill’s Kal-El.

What This Means — The DCEU is in an unusual state of existence right now. The cinematic universe is, at this point, only loosely connected by a handful of standalone franchises (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam!), while at the same time, Warner Bros. has become increasingly more open to making DC films that don’t exist within the DCEU, like Todd Philips’ Joker and The Batman.

So it’s interesting to think about Warner Bros. introducing an alternate Superman into the DCEU, possibly in place of Henry Cavill’s Clark Kent. Cavill and Warner Bros. have had a notoriously difficult time getting another standalone Superman film off the ground in recent years, and the news of the Coates-penned reboot being in development only seemed to signal the end of his tenure as Superman once and for all.

There’s no word about who the new Superman could be in the film if he’s not, in fact, Clark Kent/Kal-El (possibly Val-Zod?), but his hypothetical introduction into the DCEU would only make Cavill’s screen future as Clark Kent that much more uncertain. It could mean that Cavill’s Superman will be totally and completely replaced in the DCEU, or it could open up the potential for a crossover/team-up between the two Kryptonians sometime in the future.

Either possibility is sure to elicit strong reactions from DC fans everywhere, especially coming off the recent release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League last week, in which Cavill’s Superman plays an important role.

The Inverse Analysis — Not to sound like a broken record, but there’s really no way of knowing how accurate these claims are. Since the project is still in its early development stages and so little is known or confirmed about its story, it’s worth approaching all rumors and supposed leaks as cautiously as humanly possible until some official announcements are eventually made.

With that said, at the very least, the possibility of the Superman reboot taking place in the DCEU is an interesting one to consider, and if true, could indicate how Warner Bros. plans on expanding/rebooting some of its existing DC franchises and characters in the future. Is the studio already planning on finding in-universe replacements for its existing DCEU heroes? We’ll just have to wait and see.

You can also read the whole original Reddit post for yourself down below. Enjoy, and remember to speculate responsibly with heavy pinches of Kryptonian salt for good measure!