When DC Studios announced its "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" slate, we learned the DCU would begin with Superman: Legacy. Since then, filmmaker James Gunn has dropped "Legacy" from the title but has yet to explain why.
Talking to ComicBook.com on the set of Superman earlier this summer, the reboot's writer and director said, "I still think it has that aspect of 'Legacy' in it. We do this thing called the 'pre-mortem' before we started shooting."
"We go into a room with me and all the department heads and we say, 'Let’s say this movie is a colossal f-ck-up. We find out two years from now when this movie comes out, it goes terribly wrong. What are we doing right now that we’re not talking about, that we’re doing this, making this movie wrong?'"
"It gives a chance for all of the parties involved to speak their mind, whether it’s about the script, whether it’s about the casting, whether it’s about how departments aren’t communicating with each other," Gunn continued. "Everybody is allowed, from transportation to whatever, they’re all allowed to say what they think. And I found it extremely helpful."
It was during those conversations that the DC Studios co-CEO concluded that Superman: Legacy might give audiences the wrong idea about what he was hoping to achieve with this movie.
"One of the things was, I thought maybe the title...had a looking back feeling about it, and this isn’t about looking back, this is about looking forward," he told the site. "When you see the movie, you’ll understand where 'Legacy' comes from because it is, again, it’s about Clark and his relationship to the script...and whose legacy is he, really?"
While Superman may not be about looking backwards, Gunn is paying homage to the Man of Steel's classic look on the page by incorporating his iconic - and often surprisingly divisive - red trunks. Admitting that he initially chose not to use them, the filmmaker persisted in trying to find a way to make them work.
However, it was Superman himself, David Corenswet, who changed his sold him on them.
"We were trying on all these different versions, and we screen-tested with trunks and no trunks. And one of the things David said is that Superman wants kids to not be afraid of him," Gunn recalled. "He’s an alien. He’s got these incredible powers. He shoots beams out of his eyes, can blow the truck over. He’s this incredibly powerful, could be considered scary, individual and he wants people to like him. He wants to be a symbol of hope and positivity."
"He dresses like a professional wrestler, he dresses in a way that makes people unafraid of him, that shows that," the director added. "That really clicked in for me."
"And I think trying to pretend that Superman’s costume doesn’t have some frivolity to it, at its base, trying to make it look serious is silly because he is a superhero. He’s the first one, brightly colored, and that’s who he is. So that’s where we landed and, eventually, we all came to a place where almost all of us agreed on the trunks," he concluded.
This is as good an explanation for the trunks being included as we can remember, and love or hate them, they are part of Superman's most iconic look on the page. They didn't fit into the darker DCEU but in Gunn's DCU, it seems that part of the hero's wardrobe will be embraced.
Superman arrives in theaters on July 11, 2025.