Henry Cavill out as Superman, DC would focus on Supergirl

Thanks for posting this topic Triggy. I kind of feel like I need some therapy/comfort from our community. The internet was ablaze with this news today. Kelsey and I learned about it first thing in the morning. I am surprised at how disappointed I am about this news.

I've seen Man of Steel maybe twice. I wanted to like it more than I did but Superman killing Zod just didn't sit right with me. Additionally, I've only seen Batman v Superman once and that is totally because Batman was using guns to kill people. I've watched Wonder Woman a ton which simply speaks to its quality. Justice League I've seen twice but I watch the scene of the team vs Clark like once a month.

As a HUGE Superman/Supergirl fan (you don't make a Supergirl site if you aren't a fan) my viewing history speaks to how well I was entertained by the DCEU. On social media you can see how much I praise Tyler Hoechlin for his Superman on the show. I think he did it better than Henry. But therein lies the rub.

Tyler doesn't look 100% like Superman. Very close, but not like Henry. Tyler, is 100% committed to the part and his performance is what has put him over the top and made fans clamor for a Superman show with him headlining it. That said, no matter how you feel about the writers of Supergirl, they GOT Superman. They wrote him flawlessly. Of course that is my opinion, but when Tyler was on the screen if felt like an old friend was returning and I was just warmed to see him there.

I think this is what is making me feel so bad however. I don't follow Tyler much outside of Supergirl. I remember seeing him in Road to Perdition and he was amazing but also very young. Henry, however, I've been following since The Count of Monte Cristo. Henry is Superman. He has embraced what it means to be Superman in his day to day life. He named his dog Kal! In his instagram, he shared a post that clearly showed that he was saddened by the news. Superman means so much to him! That is why I am sad. He wants this, he has owned it and he has lived it and the only thing going against him is that the DCEU wrote him like a vigilante punk.

The best scene, aside from the fight against the league, was in the beginning of Justice League. I think it was totally a Joss Wheadon thing but I don't know. Superman interacting with kids and having FUN. Not some deity floating above a flood and saving people like Jesus. Superman is not Jesus, yes there are corollaries, but he is more human than anything and that is why we love him.

So tonight, I raise a glass to Henry Cavill, because he was a man who owned what it meant to be Superman and if he were only written like Tyler was, we would believe that Henry could fly.

Oh, a little off topic but valid I think. I wanted to share a cautionary note about Supergirl the movie. It sounds like DCEU is hanging their hat on the Supergirl tent pole. Somehow, this is supposedly going to reset the movie universe and fix the problems they've had.

First, my biased opinion. The best comic universe on any screen including marvel, is the Arrowverse. There are plenty of flaws yes, but Melissa is Supergirl, Grant Gustin is the Flash and Stephen Amell is Green Arrow. There is a hundred times more screen time with our Arrowverse actors then the movie universe but the way they handle crossovers (essentially movies) has a feel of true comic authenticity.

So here is my fear. I love Supergirl more than any character ever. I am in the camp that she is stronger than Superman and can do more. Superman maybe wins because he's been on Earth longer and has a bit of Batman training in him. So any negative reviews of Supergirl are going to make me feel ... something (likely sad).

What I don't want, is for DCEU to use the success of Wonder Woman and the new Supergirl movie to be a vehicle to negate what has been done. I don't like the DCEU but I also don't want people being totally turned off and angry at Supergirl because she brought forth a different Superman.

Like I said before I think I am in Henry Cavill's corner but if there is a movement to boycott Supergirl the movie before it is even launched because it supposedly ousted Henry will make me feel, again, very sad. I want the best for Henry but I also want the best for Supergirl. You can see in our mission statement, we built this site to try and affect the life of a superhero so my wishes for a fictional character are genuine.

I hope Supergirl the movie is given a fair chance.

...

BTW, I made a Supergirl film landing page for fun. Check it out at https://Supergirl.film.

Another bit of caution with the Supergirl movie. The writer of this article hopes the studio doesn’t hope to duplicate the success of Wonder Woman simply by having another female hero. Wonder Woman wasn’t a success because just because it stared female hero, it was a success because it was a damn good movie period. Here’s hoping care is being taken with the Supergirl movie.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this, Supergirl.tv!

I just hope WB won't ruin the character, too! The success of a movie and franchise is dependent on several things, and it particularly starts from the director chosen. Then that goes to research, script, production values, casting, etc.

Because I was at a different city with an almost dead phone, I could not write more about this topic. I'm mainly concerned about how WB would steer the movie franchise from the ground up. If they're really going to start Supergirl off from the very very beginning (reportedly at Krypton while Kal was a baby), I'm not sure how they could pull that one off by making the movie interesting enough for the general public. Origin stories are usually slow from the very beginning. My wish is for WB to make this right. It's been 34 years since Supergirl 1984 - while I still watch that movie once in a while (I gotta admit the writing was baad), it's 34 years of yours truly waiting for a Supergirl movie worthy of "wow".

Sorry I gotta go to get my car fixed and I must end here again.

If DC was to focus on a SG movie it may adversely affect the show

I'm honestly taking this Cavill-out-as-Superman business with a HUGE grain of salt. Neither Warner nor Caville (or his agent) have confirmed this. It seems like a sourceless rumor.

As for Supergirl...First off, I'm just too partial to Melissa, at this point. But additionally, I don't believe in any project DC Films has in the pipeline until it's actually filming. The number of films they've supposedly been working on, but end up getting put on hold indefinitely, vastly outweighs the projects they actually put out.

I've always maintained that Henry C. looks the part to an absurd degree, but as far as the acting component goes, he brings nothing to the table that wasn't brought by Brandon Routh. Moreover, Cavill has fallen heir to some very bad Superman scripts indeed, with the Justice League being an unsuccessful attempt to escape the creative dead end that Kal El was in thanks to "Man of Steel" & "Batman versus Superman". "Batman versus Superman" may well go down in pop culture history as the first movie to ever largely validate Lex Luthor's POV....The Cavill Franchise was simply too dark, too confusing and way too overconfident as to it's intrinsic appeal to the fans. Super girl whether a period piece or not, might be the continuity do-over the DCU desperately needs, but they have to stop making bad creative decisions from the git-go, one of them being this maddening "Make Mine Marvel Too" mindset in the feature film division.

JF