James Gunn and Warner Bros. executives are reportedly nearing a decision on who will be cast as the new Superman and Lois Lane of their new DC Comics movie and TV universe set to launch in 2025 with Gunn’s reboot Superman: Legacy. Earlier this month, Gunn convened a series of screen tests with the finalists, including Nicholas Hoult, Tom Brittney, and David Corenswet as candidates to play the Man of Steel, and Rachel Brosnahan, Phoebe Dynevor, and Emma Mackey the trio of actresses vying to play Lois.
At this point, no final decision has been made. But an article on the finalists’ screen tests from The Hollywood Reporter includes some interesting information on Superman: Legacy beyond the two leads. Not too shockingly, the film will also feature a new Lex Luthor (with Alexander and Bill Skarsgard both in the running for the role). But the piece also says there “are also other heroes to cast, such as members of a supergroup named the Authority (part of the new storyline is Superman joining a world in which superheroes already exist).”
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The Authority were created in the late 1990s by writer Warren Ellis and artist Bryan Hitch. Initially, the Authority were part of a separate universe at DC called “WildStorm,” the remnants of the company that artist Jim Lee created during his time as one of the founders of Image Comics. After Lee jumped to DC, the company acquired WildStorm. For a while, they published a whole line of WildStorm comics, including The Authority, but later they integrated its characters into the main DC Universe.
The Authority is essentially a dark, modern take on the Justice League. The look and tone of the book was hugely influential in the early 2000s; Hitch later went to Marvel where he co-created The Ultimates with Mark Millar (who replaced Ellis as writer of The Authority), which was a dark, modern version of the Avengers. (The Ultimates is the comic that introduced the version of Nick Fury that looked a lot like Samuel L. Jackson, inspiring his casting in the MCU.)
After the various members of the Authority — including a thinly-veiled analog of Superman named Apollo — were brought into the primary DC continuity in 2011, they served on other DC teams. In 2021, they starred in a comic book called Superman and the Authority, which could conceivably influence Superman: Legacy.
Superman: Legacy is scheduled to open in theaters in 2025. And a film for The Authority was already announced as part of the first wave of ten movies and TV shows in the new DCU; it does not yet have a confirmed release date.
The New DC Universe of Movies and Shows
All the projects announced by DC Studios as the start of “Chapter 1” of the company’s new universe of movies and shows.
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