James Gunn Has An Important Lois Lane Decision To Make, And Where He Lands Will Tell Us A Lot About His Superman Movie (2024)

When James Gunn and Peter Safran revealed their plans for a fresh DC Universe, one aspect of their approach really intrigued me. They made it clear that Superman (played in the upcoming DC movie by David Corenswet) would exist in an established world of heroes, and by the time we are introduced to him, he’ll already be the Man of Steel. So, no baby in a capsule landing on a Kansas farm this time around. It also explains why the Superman cast will make room for DC heroes like Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi). But if Superman already is Clark Kent, and we know that he’ll be working at The Daily Planet, this brings up a major question about James Gunn’s take on Lois Lane.

Namely, will she begin the movie knowing that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person?

It sounds simple. But Gunn’s decision on where to start Lois Lane’s relationship with Superman sets the table for a lot of the storytelling happening in the 2025 Superman movie, and beyond. Different interpretations of Superman have handled this complicated dance in alternate ways. Richard Donner’s seminal Superman series didn’t have Lois discovering Superman’s secret identity until the second film. But in the course of proving her belief, Lois went to several extremes to force Clark to reveal himself… including pulling a gun on him in a deleted scene.

Later interpretations of Lois Lane, both in the comics and in live action, jumped past this somewhat innocent (and naive) approach. When Zack Snyder tackled Superman’s origin in Man of Steel, he made sure that Amy Adams’ Lois figured out, very quickly, who Superman was in his day-to-day life. And the spectacular Arrowverse series Superman & Lois opened with the leads as a married couple, and a family with two teenage boys. We didn’t have to stumble through the tired routine of, “When will she figure this out?”

Which makes a lot of sense. Lois Lane is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. She’s a top mind, an equal partner to Superman on so many of their adventures. She’s the antithesis to the cliched “damsel in distress.” So when you position Lois as someone who can’t deduce that this dude in glasses and a slouch ISN’T Superman, it takes us out of the storyline. It immediately has us questioning Lois, at least on a root level.

There are core beats of a superhero’s origin that should be viewed as “understood.” We don’t need to see Batman’s parents gunned down in an alleyway (and we didn’t, when Matt Reeves moved to Gotham with The Batman). The death of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben can be left out of the narrative, as it was in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. With Superman, the mythology includes the destruction of Krypton, and his adolescence on a farm. But can’t it also include the moment when Lois figured out that Clark Kent is Superman?

I’d argue that it can. And while I don’t know what James Gunn plans, I’d be surprised if he cast the brilliant Rachel Brosnahan to play a version of Lois Lane who overlooks the obvious connection between her towering Daily Planet colleague, and the costumed superhero who is flying to Metropolis’ rescue time and time again. Starting at a point where Lois collaborates with Clark on his Superman adventures also goes a long way into establishing the DC world presented in Superman as ongoing, and lived-in. There’s instant history there. There’s baggage that’s implied, but in a positive way.

Superman won’t be our first foray into James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe. We recently learned that the animated series Creature Commandos is going to kick off the first chapter of this grand DC plan, known as Gods and Monsters, in December 2024. Make sure that you have your Max subscription up to date, so you can see how this universe plans to begin, and then expand.