Henry Cavill Won’t Rule Out a Superman Return After DC Studios Shake-Up, and He Cited ‘An American Tail’

Henry Cavill’s time as the Man of Steel is one of the more bittersweet chapters in modern superhero history. The actor played Superman from 2013 until his last appearance in 2022. That final turn came in a surprise cameo for ‘Black Adam,’ which was meant to set up what came next.

What came next never really happened. Cavill announced his return as Superman in a social media post after the film’s release, but it never amounted to more than that. Less than 2 months later, James Gunn and Peter Safran were named to run DC Studios, and Cavill soon shared that he was leaving the role as the studio rebooted from scratch.

Now the people who made that call are gone. On Nov. 9, Skydance announced that Gunn and Safran would step down, with former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham becoming president and chief creative officer of DC Studios on Dec. 1. Within days, Cavill was asked the question fans have been asking for years, and ComicBook.com shared his answer on X.

The actor didn’t slam the door. Citing a certain animated bird, he said it’s a matter of “never say never,” adding that he’s had a wonderful time as Superman and “would never say never now.” The pigeon reference comes from the 1986 animated film ‘An American Tail,’ and it’s about as charmingly noncommittal as a superhero answer gets.

The remarks weren’t part of a Superman press tour. The interview with Inverse was published Wednesday, Nov. 11. It was tied to ‘Mustache Protocol,’ a 16-bit game Cavill built on Google’s Googlebook with AI tools to support the men’s health charity Movember. The game riffs on the digitally removed mustache from ‘Justice League,’ and Google will donate $11 per play from Nov. 11 to 30, up to $500,000.

The timing is hard to ignore. JoBlo noted that a week earlier, a Cavill comeback would have seemed almost laughably unlikely, but with the DC slate in question, things that once seemed impossible could now happen. CBR similarly argued that with Latcham replacing Gunn and Safran, Cavill could get another shot at the cape.

Not everyone is buying the hype. SlashFilm admitted it was already tired of the Cavill return talk, saying the new leadership doesn’t need more chatter about him suiting back up. That fatigue is understandable, given how messy the last attempt was.

There’s also the matter of the current Superman. The Gunn and Safran regime recast the role with David Corenswet. Screen Rant suggested that if Cavill did return, an Elseworlds-style project would be more realistic than reviving the entire DCEU.

For now, it’s all speculation. GeekTyrant stressed that there is no official indication a Cavill return is happening, and that it remains a possibility rather than a confirmed project. Latcham, who starts Dec. 1, has so far shared only a general statement about the iconic nature of DC’s characters.

What Cavill has given fans is a hint, not a plan. Whether Latcham wants to build something fresh or look back at what came before is the real question. Until DC answers it, “never say never” will have to do.