Latest news with #Kryptonian
Muscat Daily
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Muscat Daily
Bradley Cooper enters the DC Universe as Superman's father
Los Angles – former Guardians of the Galaxy actor and director unexpectedly reunite in James Gunn's latest action-packed adventure titled – Superman. Superman is the first feature-length film soaring to cinemas by DC Studios since Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which came out back in December 2023. Set to fly this summer, this movie tells a new version of that familiar origin story we all know and love. Featuring our favorite Kryptonian superhero – Clark Kent. And this time around, he isn't fighting for screen time all on his own as this movie stars Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Neva Howell as Martha Kent and Bradley Cooper as Superman's biological father – Jor-El. As Gunn revealed in a recent interview with Extra, he emphasised the camaraderie he shared with the man behind Marvel's talking racoon. Stating how Cooper joined the project during production as projection guiding his son down the path of heroism after the director invited him to join his latest film. This cameo announcement took an unexpected twist when Gunn teased Cooper's involvement in future DC projects, explaining 'it's possible for him to come back if needed, you never know.'
AsiaOne
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- AsiaOne
Bradley Cooper plays Jor-El in James Gunn's Superman movie, Entertainment News
Superman director James Gunn has revealed Bradley Cooper plays the titular hero's father Jor-El in the DC movie. The 58-year-old filmmaker collaborated with the A Star Is Born actor, 50, on the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Marvel — in which Cooper voiced Rocket Raccoon — and Gunn has now revealed Cooper will feature in Superman as the hero's Kryptonian father. Speaking with Jake's Takes, Gunn said: "Really, Bradley's just doing me a favour. He's a friend. We've stayed in close contact since the Guardians movies, and I admire him greatly as an actor and as a director. "I just said, 'Hey, will you do me a favour? Come down, go to England, we're going to shoot you in a 3D environment, make a hologram of you, and you can play Jor-El.' He was like, 'Okay.'" When asked whether Cooper's Jor-El could appear elsewhere in a future DC Universe (DCU) project, Gunn teased: "You never know. It's possible." Cooper won't be the only Guardians of the Galaxy alum to feature in Superman, as two of the robots found in Superman's Fortress of Solitude are voiced by Pom Klementieff and Michael Rooker — who portrayed Mantis and Yondu, respectively, in the Marvel trilogy. Superman follows the titular hero (David Corenswet) as he tries to balance his human and Kryptonian lives, all while Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) does everything in his power to bring about his downfall. Superman — which lands in cinemas on July 11 — is set to be the first movie in Gunn's DCU, and Corenswet recently stressed the director's cinematic universe will differ from others as the DCU will prioritise the individual stories in each film rather than an overarching plan for the wider franchise. The actor explained to Screen Rant: "If people knew what goes into getting a movie together and making a movie, they'd understand that if you stick too closely to the plan, you're going to end up compromising on the things that are actually important, and the things that keep people coming back to the theatre and get people wanting to show their kids the movies that they saw. "So that's the guiding light for him and [co-DC head] Peter [Safran] moving forward. "There are some things coming up, but that's the main principle and that's a good person to be working for." Even so, Corenswet admitted he knew "essentially nothing" about the future of the DCU. He said: "I mean, [I know] essentially nothing. Essentially just that [Gunn] means it when he says that no plan is better than the quality of the scripts and the directors who he and Peter have to do them. "I don't know very much about the comic book fandom, and the idea of getting a timeline announcement. I know very little about that. But I know it's a thing, and I know that, for better or for worse, they will compromise a timeline rather than compromise a film. "They want to make good movies and good television shows, and they want them to be worth watching, and worth rewatching." [[nid:717689]]
Glasgow Times
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Superman actor hopes to bring hero to a new generation
David Corenswet, who stars as the eponymous hero in the upcoming reboot of the same name, also told of the experience of making the character 'his own', at a red carpet event in Leicester Square on Wednesday. David Corenswet (left), Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult attend a Superman fan event at Cineworld Leicester Square, London (Lucy North/PA) The 31-year-old, who has the dual role of Clark Kent and his Kryptonian alter-ego, told the PA news agency: 'You can't help but make it your own. 'I wish I could just give the great performances that have come before, but I couldn't help but do my own thing. 'So much of (the history) is already in the character and people's knowledge and love of the character. 'So that sort of came for free, and I just had the great opportunity to maybe explore some different forms of the character and hopefully bring him to a new generation who maybe haven't had their first Superman experience.' He joked that he didn't have big shoes to fill as his were custom-made, so they 'fit like a glove'. The James Gunn-directed remake, described as 'the true beginning of the DC Universe', sees Twisters actor Corenswet protecting Earth from Nicholas Hoult's scheming Lex Luthor. Gunn, a self-confessed DC Comics superfan, co-chief executive of DC Studios and writer of the reboot, said he has brought his favourite elements of the comics into the 21st century – including superhero dog Krypto. 'This is really about presenting the Superman to the world that I love and have loved since I was a kid,' Gunn told PA. The Marvellous Mrs Maisel actress Rachel Brosnahan stars as Lois Lane, and her romantic connection with Clark Kent has been teased in a trailer in which they stare at each other in the Daily Planet newspaper offices, and later embrace. Brosnahan said filming with her co-stars and Gunn was 'a blast'. She said: '(The film) gave us the opportunity to deepen the relationship between Lane and Kent and explore more deeply this relationship that you've come to know in the comics for so many years.' On playing a reporter, the 34-year-old said: 'I have a whole new appreciation and, also, I'm on to your tips and tricks.' Director James Gunn said the film was about presenting Superman to the world that he loves (Lucy North/PA) Gunn, famed for Marvel film series Guardians Of The Galaxy and DC Comics movie The Suicide Squad, said he is excited for fans to see the personal interactions between Lane and Kent. He added: 'I'm excited for every piece of it, and it makes me it really warms my heart that all of these people are so excited to be here.' British actor Hoult plays Superman's nemesis and the chief executive of the LuthorCorp, and the film also stars several DC superheroes, including Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), a Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced). It will be released in UK cinemas on July 11 by Warner Bros Pictures.
Sydney Morning Herald
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Look, up in the sky: it's a Superman who wants to be just like us
When director James Gunn was offered the chance to direct the next Superman movie, he said no. It's a surprising admission, but one that requires a little additional context. The offer was made back in 2018, and came with a second option, directing what would become the 2021 sequel to Suicide Squad. Gunn took the latter. 'I thought about Superman, but it just didn't really speak to me,' Gunn explains of his initial decision to say no to the most famous superhero in comic-book history. 'They wanted a new Superman, at a time that was much closer to Zack Snyder's [2013] movie, and Suicide Squad was an R-rated Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a little bit more familiar and easier for me to sink my teeth into. 'But the idea of Superman stuck with me and I kept thinking about it,' Gunn adds. 'It was always there, and it was something like a thought experiment, trying to figure out how would I do it. And eventually it was offered to me again, and then I said yes.' The result is titled simply Superman, and stars 31-year-old American actor David Corenswet as Superman, known by day as Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. The film also stars Rachel Brosnahan as reporter Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as super-villain Lex Luthor, plus Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific and Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho. The many adaptations of Superman for both the cinema and television screen have told the Man of Steel's 'origin' story from a specific prism: that the last infant son of the distant planet Krypton was dispatched into space as his home planet disintegrated, and was brought safely to Earth and raised by a childless couple, Smallville farmer Jonathan Kent and his wife, Martha. Gunn's film does not change the origin story, but perhaps gently reshapes the emphasis. The 1978 Richard Donner film, which is remembered by many as the definitive Superman film, for example, makes more of Superman's Kryptonian parents, played by Marlon Brando and Susannah York, than it does Ma and Pa Kent. Gunn seems as interested in the Kents as he is in Jor-El and Lara, perhaps more. 'This is a story about a father's relationship to his son, and a son's relationship to his father,' Gunn says. 'And I think that Pa Kent's incredibly important in all of that. Superman comes to Earth, he was not born to Earth but he has an Earthly father. A lot of this is about Pa and Clark and their relationship, and I think it's a really beautiful thing.' Because Clark Kent, as he is known, is raised on Earth, Gunn also wants to take time to explore Superman's humanity, rather than, perhaps, Clark's relationship with the distant echo of Krypton. 'Superman is an alien, but he doesn't feel like an alien,' Gunn says. 'I think he feels like we do, but he knows on some elemental level he's completely different from everybody else. And I think that's the thing he really doesn't like. I think he hates that. He wants to belong, he wants to be like us. 'And the irony of it all is that [his nemesis] Lex Luthor hates him because he's different, which is what Lex wants to be,' Gunn adds. 'Lex wants to be better than everyone else. Lex wants to be put up on a pedestal. So we've got the alien who wants to be human, and the human that wants to be superhuman, and that's the conflict in the story, at least on the physical level.' Which brings us to Gunn's father, James F. Gunn. Gunn senior and his wife, Lee, raised a family in Manchester, Missouri, a suburb on the western outskirts of St Louis. Like Pa Kent, Gunn senior, who died in 2019, never wanted much that he didn't have already in Manchester, but like Pa Kent he taught his son to look beyond the stars. Loading 'I owe my dad a lot,' Gunn says. 'I think I owe both my parents a lot, but my dad, I went through a hard time as a kid where I didn't quite fit in. I guess I was having a really hard time, my dad went and talked to a psychologist and the psychologist said, 'what does your son like? Try and bond with him over things that he likes'. 'So my dad took me to a comic book convention in Chicago, and to this day, it was the greatest weekend of my life,' Gunn says. 'I don't think I'll ever beat that weekend in terms of how much fun I had, both being with my dad, watching my dad be amazed, buying tons of comic books. 'It was a real validation by my father that what I was interested in was OK,' Gunn adds. 'And very different, I think, from other parents who probably thought comic books were stupid stuff and they should be reading something else.' In fact, the Superman story itself is deeply knitted to the story of fathers and sons, both in the narrative – Jor-El sending his son Kal-El to Earth as Krypton disintegrates – and also behind the scenes. According to creator Jerry Siegel's daughter, Joanne, the death of her grandfather in a bungled robbery contributed to the blueprint for a bullet-proof hero. How much losing his own dad reshaped Gunn's approach to the Superman story is difficult to discern, he says. 'I really don't know. The only way in which I've really changed since my dad died, which is sad, is that my dad was the first person I would show everything to that I did. 'That was the reason I kind of did stuff,' Gunn adds. 'The reason I wanted to be successful was so I could say, hey dad, look at all this money I made. The whole reason I wanted to make movies was like, dad, look at this. He loved what I did and it was the best reason to make stuff.' Central to Gunn's mission was the search for Superman himself, a quest which brought Corenswet, whose credits include We Own This City (2022, for HBO) and Lady in the Lake (2024, for Apple TV+), into the room. 'It's not so much that he's a role I've always wanted to play, it was that when somebody brought it up as a possibility, I thought, well, sure,' Corenswet says. 'I mean, who wouldn't want to play that? The most iconic, the original superhero. 'If you pass somebody wearing a Superman t-shirt, or you see a Superman flag or somebody has a Superman tattoo, everybody knows that symbol. Even if they've never read a comic book and never seen a movie, they know that symbol, and it means something unifying and exciting and hopeful.' Boot camp for Corenswet, aside from the enormous physical demands of the role, was a reading list that included Superman for All Seasons and All-Star Superman. The former is a four-issue comic book limited series written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale, published in 1998. It is significant because it is split into four chapters, exploring Superman's childhood in Smallville, but also his work in Metropolist on the Daily Planet and his rivalry with Lex Luthor. The latter is a 12-issue comic book series written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely, published between 2005 and 2008, which borrows from Greek mythology. In the series, a dying Superman embarks on a series of final tasks for the people of Earth, dubbed the Twelve Labours of Superman. Equally intriguing to Corenswet was Christopher Reeve's performance in the 1978 film adaptation of the comic book, which remains a cultural touchstone. 'There's a sort of meta-performance that lifts off of the performances that we've seen on the big and small screen, great portrayals in television shows throughout the decades ... a sort of amalgam, a platonic Superman that exists in the public consciousness that everybody sort of holds a piece of, and doesn't really exist anywhere firm,' Corenswet says. Loading 'But I think the great thing about Superman is that his spirit is so much one of the good and the hopeful that it tends to be that the great contributions … rise up into the firmament and join that canonical ideal of Superman.' Any missteps along the way, or things that didn't really resonate with people, tend to be forgiven, he says. 'Even the great Christopher Reeve had moments where you go like, oh, well, that's kind of silly, or that was … more for kids than it was for adults … it's not that they're forgotten, but they're allowed to fall away and only the good remains,' Corenswet says.
The Age
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Look, up in the sky: it's a Superman who wants to be just like us
When director James Gunn was offered the chance to direct the next Superman movie, he said no. It's a surprising admission, but one that requires a little additional context. The offer was made back in 2018, and came with a second option, directing what would become the 2021 sequel to Suicide Squad. Gunn took the latter. 'I thought about Superman, but it just didn't really speak to me,' Gunn explains of his initial decision to say no to the most famous superhero in comic-book history. 'They wanted a new Superman, at a time that was much closer to Zack Snyder's [2013] movie, and Suicide Squad was an R-rated Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a little bit more familiar and easier for me to sink my teeth into. 'But the idea of Superman stuck with me and I kept thinking about it,' Gunn adds. 'It was always there, and it was something like a thought experiment, trying to figure out how would I do it. And eventually it was offered to me again, and then I said yes.' The result is titled simply Superman, and stars 31-year-old American actor David Corenswet as Superman, known by day as Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. The film also stars Rachel Brosnahan as reporter Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as super-villain Lex Luthor, plus Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific and Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho. The many adaptations of Superman for both the cinema and television screen have told the Man of Steel's 'origin' story from a specific prism: that the last infant son of the distant planet Krypton was dispatched into space as his home planet disintegrated, and was brought safely to Earth and raised by a childless couple, Smallville farmer Jonathan Kent and his wife, Martha. Gunn's film does not change the origin story, but perhaps gently reshapes the emphasis. The 1978 Richard Donner film, which is remembered by many as the definitive Superman film, for example, makes more of Superman's Kryptonian parents, played by Marlon Brando and Susannah York, than it does Ma and Pa Kent. Gunn seems as interested in the Kents as he is in Jor-El and Lara, perhaps more. 'This is a story about a father's relationship to his son, and a son's relationship to his father,' Gunn says. 'And I think that Pa Kent's incredibly important in all of that. Superman comes to Earth, he was not born to Earth but he has an Earthly father. A lot of this is about Pa and Clark and their relationship, and I think it's a really beautiful thing.' Because Clark Kent, as he is known, is raised on Earth, Gunn also wants to take time to explore Superman's humanity, rather than, perhaps, Clark's relationship with the distant echo of Krypton. 'Superman is an alien, but he doesn't feel like an alien,' Gunn says. 'I think he feels like we do, but he knows on some elemental level he's completely different from everybody else. And I think that's the thing he really doesn't like. I think he hates that. He wants to belong, he wants to be like us. 'And the irony of it all is that [his nemesis] Lex Luthor hates him because he's different, which is what Lex wants to be,' Gunn adds. 'Lex wants to be better than everyone else. Lex wants to be put up on a pedestal. So we've got the alien who wants to be human, and the human that wants to be superhuman, and that's the conflict in the story, at least on the physical level.' Which brings us to Gunn's father, James F. Gunn. Gunn senior and his wife, Lee, raised a family in Manchester, Missouri, a suburb on the western outskirts of St Louis. Like Pa Kent, Gunn senior, who died in 2019, never wanted much that he didn't have already in Manchester, but like Pa Kent he taught his son to look beyond the stars. Loading 'I owe my dad a lot,' Gunn says. 'I think I owe both my parents a lot, but my dad, I went through a hard time as a kid where I didn't quite fit in. I guess I was having a really hard time, my dad went and talked to a psychologist and the psychologist said, 'what does your son like? Try and bond with him over things that he likes'. 'So my dad took me to a comic book convention in Chicago, and to this day, it was the greatest weekend of my life,' Gunn says. 'I don't think I'll ever beat that weekend in terms of how much fun I had, both being with my dad, watching my dad be amazed, buying tons of comic books. 'It was a real validation by my father that what I was interested in was OK,' Gunn adds. 'And very different, I think, from other parents who probably thought comic books were stupid stuff and they should be reading something else.' In fact, the Superman story itself is deeply knitted to the story of fathers and sons, both in the narrative – Jor-El sending his son Kal-El to Earth as Krypton disintegrates – and also behind the scenes. According to creator Jerry Siegel's daughter, Joanne, the death of her grandfather in a bungled robbery contributed to the blueprint for a bullet-proof hero. How much losing his own dad reshaped Gunn's approach to the Superman story is difficult to discern, he says. 'I really don't know. The only way in which I've really changed since my dad died, which is sad, is that my dad was the first person I would show everything to that I did. 'That was the reason I kind of did stuff,' Gunn adds. 'The reason I wanted to be successful was so I could say, hey dad, look at all this money I made. The whole reason I wanted to make movies was like, dad, look at this. He loved what I did and it was the best reason to make stuff.' Central to Gunn's mission was the search for Superman himself, a quest which brought Corenswet, whose credits include We Own This City (2022, for HBO) and Lady in the Lake (2024, for Apple TV+), into the room. 'It's not so much that he's a role I've always wanted to play, it was that when somebody brought it up as a possibility, I thought, well, sure,' Corenswet says. 'I mean, who wouldn't want to play that? The most iconic, the original superhero. 'If you pass somebody wearing a Superman t-shirt, or you see a Superman flag or somebody has a Superman tattoo, everybody knows that symbol. Even if they've never read a comic book and never seen a movie, they know that symbol, and it means something unifying and exciting and hopeful.' Boot camp for Corenswet, aside from the enormous physical demands of the role, was a reading list that included Superman for All Seasons and All-Star Superman. The former is a four-issue comic book limited series written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale, published in 1998. It is significant because it is split into four chapters, exploring Superman's childhood in Smallville, but also his work in Metropolist on the Daily Planet and his rivalry with Lex Luthor. The latter is a 12-issue comic book series written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely, published between 2005 and 2008, which borrows from Greek mythology. In the series, a dying Superman embarks on a series of final tasks for the people of Earth, dubbed the Twelve Labours of Superman. Equally intriguing to Corenswet was Christopher Reeve's performance in the 1978 film adaptation of the comic book, which remains a cultural touchstone. 'There's a sort of meta-performance that lifts off of the performances that we've seen on the big and small screen, great portrayals in television shows throughout the decades ... a sort of amalgam, a platonic Superman that exists in the public consciousness that everybody sort of holds a piece of, and doesn't really exist anywhere firm,' Corenswet says. Loading 'But I think the great thing about Superman is that his spirit is so much one of the good and the hopeful that it tends to be that the great contributions … rise up into the firmament and join that canonical ideal of Superman.' Any missteps along the way, or things that didn't really resonate with people, tend to be forgiven, he says. 'Even the great Christopher Reeve had moments where you go like, oh, well, that's kind of silly, or that was … more for kids than it was for adults … it's not that they're forgotten, but they're allowed to fall away and only the good remains,' Corenswet says.
