What David Corenswet Must Do to Fight Against Typecasting While He's Superman
For 85 years, little boys have tied blankets around their necks and pretended to "fly" around their houses while imagining themselves as Superman, complete with his red cape - each generation calling a different actor their Man of Steel.
For my dad - part of the Baby Boomer generation, born in 1954 - it was George Reeves. For myself - as a Millennial born in 1984 - it was Christopher Reeve. I’m not sure if my father remembers this. But I have a vivid memory of running around our living room in a Superman t-shirt and cape as he kept an amused eye on me while watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on VHS.
In just two years, a new generation of young boys will be running around their own living rooms imagining David Corenswet in the red cape and blue suit. That's certainly what Superman: Legacy writer/director and DC Studios CEO James Gunn is hoping for along with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, the shareholders he answers to, and the executives who answer to him.
Yes, July 11, 2025, is both a long way off as well as a day that will be here before we know it. But right now, my instincts lead me to believe that this new generation will embrace Corenswet as the new Superman - if for no other reason than the law of averages. With all due respect, neither Brandon Routh nor Henry Cavill was truly accepted in the role by the general moviegoing public. But something tells me Corenswet will win people over.
Gunn also has the luxury of hindsight, which his directorial predecessors Bryan Singer and Zack Snyder lacked. Both went in their own unique directions - one a precursor to the “legacy sequel” trend studios later embraced (and rather cynically so), but bathed too deep in nostalgia (Superman Returns), and the other a post-9/11 take on the Superman lore that was undone by its own “destruction porn” third act (Man of Steel). Both left audiences rather underwhelmed.
Gunn, however, is now in a position to step back, take it all in, and see what worked and what didn't - ultimately benefiting from their failures and learning from the mistakes of the past. Gunn wants his interpretation to stand on its own two feet, and he's had plenty of time to figure out how to accomplish that, seeing as how he's been working on Superman: Legacy since early 2022 and - for what little it's worth at this stage - word is that all parties are happy with the latest draft of his script.
If Superman: Legacy indeed becomes the four-quadrant mega-hit that WBD shareholders hope/wish/pray for, it may very well put Corenswet in a peculiar situation. Remember, Gunn's long-term game plan for the DC Universe calls for its actors to ultimately appear in TV shows, animated projects, and video games in addition to movies.
Corenswet will be paid handsomely - more money than you or I will ever see in our lifetime. But committing so firmly to that franchise and its iconic superhero - assuming it all works out - will allow little time for him to fight against the kryptonite that has historically plagued all Superman actors: typecasting.
Much has been said about the typecasting woes of Superman actors over the years. Documentaries have been produced, books have been written, and urban legends have been passed along as fact. But each actor faced their own unique challenges once their time wearing the red cape and blue suit was over - Reeves, and Reeve, famously, but also Routh, and, yes, even Cavill, whose own undoing was ironically returning to the role for a much-publicized cameo in Black Adam, thereby allowing himself to be used as a pawn in Dwayne Johnson's fight to take over DC Studios and later being perceived as “damaged goods” after his public firing from the role. Meanwhile high-profile projects such as Warhammer 40K and the Highlander remake remain in development with no movement of late outside of empty talk.
With all that being said, what exactly can Team Corenswet do to buck the trend?
One should look to his Kryptonian predecessors and the common mistake that every single one of them made - the misconception that they must “play against type” as their direct follow-up, and take on ill-fitting roles that are dramatically different than the Man of Steel in order to show their versatility. Because the truth is that if you managed to pull off the dual role of the meek-but-loveable Clark Kent - the disguise - and the confident-and-righteous Superman - his real identity - you've already cemented just how versatile you are.
I'd go one step further. Don't run away from Superman in your downtime between trips to the DCU. Face it head-on. Embrace it!
Take a lesson from Will Smith, whose gradual rise was carefully calculated. He went from conquering the music scene as part of the wildly popular duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the French Prince to a full-fledged television star with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before finally transitioning to movie stardom as the King of July 4th whose own God-given charisma anchored colossal hits such as Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men in Black to name a few.
You see, the end goal for Smith and his own reps was always the big screen. So they specifically studied what kinds of films audiences flocked to - big blockbusters chock full of action, comedy, and VFX - and they modeled the actor's career after someone who routinely made such films: Harrison Ford.
Corenswet should swipe a page out of Smith’s playbook of using Ford’s career as his North Star, and look at the career choices of another icon who - as a matter of fact - would be a fitting choice for Superman’s own adoptive father Jonathan Kent: Tom Hanks.
Both Corenswet and Hanks have an unmistakable “every man” quality onscreen that many attempt but few genuinely have and both evoke the inherent likeability and charm of an even greater icon of film: one James Stewart who Hanks was often compared to and Corenswet was mimicking - intentional or not - in his leading turn on Ryan Murphy’s disastrous limited-series Hollywood.
But it goes even deeper. Whether it was as a brilliant legal-mind stricken with AIDS and fighting for both his professional life and his own dignity as he slowly succumbs to the disease (Philadelphia), a simple-minded man who lived the kind of extraordinary life we all hope for but few truly accomplish (Forrest Gump), an astronaut working together with his crew and using their wits to maneuver back to Earth as the entire world watched on (Apollo 13) or a teacher-turned-U.S. captain leading an impossible mission - one questioned by himself and his very team - to get a single soldier back home in the heart of WWII (Saving Private Ryan).
Hanks is the very face of America. Everyone it represents, everything it fights for, its ever-evolving views and its moral authority. He is as all-American as apple-pie, baseball and yes Superman.
It's a bold career strategy, and certainly not an easy one to pull off. But Corenswet has to think “to infinity and beyond,” to quote one of Hanks' movies. So many of Corenswet’s contemporaries are too short-sighted in their career path. Just because he landed the role of the most iconic figure in pop culture doesn't mean he should stop then and there.
But no matter how good things may get during Corenswet's tenure, or how red-hot his career gets while representing truth, justice, and the American way, the day will come when Corenswet hangs up the red cape for good and tucks his blue suit into a drawer.
If Corenswet hopes to go up, up, and away following that career-defining role and define his own career beyond that, it'll depend on the choices he makes right now and going forward. After all, it's his legacy he needs to worry about - not Superman’s.