As promised by DC Studios co-head James Gunn, the strikes did not delay his next directorial effort, “Superman: Legacy,” due in summer 2025, and the film is moving ahead. There are two pieces of news delivered this week.
For one, the movie’s villain has been named; it’s not Lex Luthor, and instead, it’s The Engineer (though that doesn’t discount that Luther could be in there somewhere). Additionally, the actor hired to play the part is María Gabriela De Faría, a Venezuelan actress and singer of Portuguese descent known for appearing in television series across South America like Nickelodeon’s “Isa TKM.” Most recently, she appeared in the Fox series, “The Moodys,” which ran from 2019 to 2021, and “Animal Control.”
The Engineer is an antagonist using nanotech technology that Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch created. The character was first introduced in The Authority vol.1 #1 in 1999, and that should ring bells as Gunn’s DC Studios has already announced an “Authority” movie, so perhaps everything connects in the way Gunn was trained to do while at Marvel.
“Superman: Legacy” already has a big cast and is loaded with DC heroes: David Corenswet stars as Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan plays Lois Lane, Nathan Fillion features as Guy Gardner/Green Lantern, Isabela Merced fits in as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi will play Mister Terrific, and Anthony Carrigan stars as Rex Mason/Metamorpho.
Gunn recently confirmed that “Superman: Legacy” would keep its July 11, 2025, and production is supposed to start in March 2024.
Meanwhile, in related DC Studios news, Ana Nogueira has been hired as the “new” writer of the forthcoming film, “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.” We use air quotes on new because Nogueira has actually been rehired. She was hired to write the “Supergirl” film that was supposed to connect to the Supergirl featured in this summer’s “The Flash” movie. That iteration of canon has been scrapped, but Gunn and DC Studios co-head Peter Safran liked her draft enough to hire her for this new Supergirl version.
“Superman is a guy sent to Earth and raised by loving parents, whereas Supergirl in this story, she is a character raised on a chunk of Krypton,” Gunn explained in a video released on Twitter when he announced his new “Chapter 1: Gods And Monsters” DC Studios slate (which you can see below). “She watched everybody around her perish in some terrible way, so she’s a much more jaded character.”
‘World Of Tomorrow’ has no release date but is expected to arrive sometime in 2027.
