It’s a startling first look at the world’s greatest hero—broken and bleeding into the snow.
The first teaser trailer for the new Superman film from Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn opens with David Corenswet’s Man of Steel crashing like a meteorite into a rocky, frozen landscape and barely able to move. All he can do is try to summon help with a half-hearted whistle. Like man’s best friend, Superman’s best friend also happens to be a dog.
We know this isn’t the end of Superman’s journey because it is literally just the start. Gunn and producer Peter Safran share chairman and CEO duties at DC Studios, and their take on Superman (coming July 11, 2025) inaugurates a new series of films based on the DC comic book universe. Like the new trailer, Gunn says, the film itself begins with the hero in literal freefall.
“This movie, at the end of the day, is not about power,” Gunn says. “This movie is about, in the loose sense of the word, a human being struggling with his day-to-day life. And we see a different aspect of him at the beginning. I thought it was a cool place to start the trailer—and the movie, frankly.”
The four-legged salvation that comes to the hero’s aid is Krypto the Superdog, who first appeared in Adventure Comics #210 in March 1955. But even this relationship gets a new twist in the upcoming film. “His relationship with Krypto is…complicated,” Gunn says during a preview of the footage at the Warner Bros. lot. “He’s not nearly the best dog. There’s a lot more to Krypto than you see in this trailer.”
Even including such an offbeat character is a signal to audiences that the new movie franchise is taking an expansive and inclusive approach to the character’s comic book legacy. “I thought that it was a way to say, yes, we’re embracing all of the Superman mythology,” says Gunn, who wanted to make sure people knew this was not just another stand-alone venture.
“There’s a way that superhero movies have taken these characters and said, ‘Okay, yeah, it’s Batman, but it’s not any of the other stuff …’ Or ‘It’s Superman, but it’s not any of the other stuff,’” Gunn says. “But in our [film], he lives in a world with superheroes. He has friends who are other superheroes. He has people he doesn’t get along with who are other superheroes.” The trailer also features Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific and Nathan Fillion a Green Lantern (not the Green Lantern) named Guy Gardner, who boasts the worst bowl-cut in this or any other galaxy. (Vanity Fair broke the news of their casting back when the film was still called Superman: Legacy.)
