Why does David Corenswet’s Superman appear battered in trailer? Director reveals

David Corenswet’s Superman appears disheveled and actually injured and bleeding as he falls on the Earth in the new trailer for Superman.

Now, director James Gunn has revealed why it is so, and the reasoning is symbolic.

“We do have a battered Superman at the beginning, and I think that is our country,” Gunn said at a press conference for the trailer.

He noted that Superman is “a movie about kindness. It was a movie about being good.”

Reflecting on the right and left wing ideologies in America, he said: “I believe in the goodness of human beings, and I believe that most people in this country despite their ideological beliefs or politics are doing their best to get by and are trying to be good people despite what it might seem like to the other side or what that other side might be, and I think this movie is about that.”

Explaining the core message of the movie, the Guardians of the Galaxy director said: “It’s about the basic kindness of human beings and that it can be seen as uncool and it can be seen as under siege when some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices”.

Said Gunn, “I live in a very rural part of Georgia and I see the kindness and the beauty of the people every day who don’t share all the same world beliefs as I do, but I think that’s what the movie is about: the basic fundamental decency of human beings all over the world.”

James Gunn’s Superman will bow in theaters on July 11, 2025.