New DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran have defended their decision not to bring back Henry Cavill as Superman as they reboot the DC Universe with a new over-arching storyline.

‘We didn’t fire Henry. Henry was never cast,’ said Gunn during a presentation to reporters announcing plans for five new DCU films and five new TV series, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Cavill, who was widely expected to return as the man of steel after appearing in a credits teaser for Black Adam in October, last month announced the ‘sad news’ that Gunn and Safran did not plan to bring him back.

Gunn explained: ‘For me, it’s about who do I want to cast as Superman and who do the filmmakers we have want to cast. And for me, for this story, it isn’t Henry.’

‘I like Henry, I think he’s a great guy. I think he’s getting d****d around by a lot of people, including the former regime at this company. But this Superman is not Henry, for a number of reasons,’ he added.

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‘We didn’t fire Henry. Henry was never cast,’ said DC Studios boss James Gunn of the decision not to bring back Henry Cavill as Superman in their DCU reboot

Cavill’s shock announcement in December that he would ‘not be returning as Superman’ was one of many signs that Gunn and Safran planned major shakeups to the DC franchise.

Following the merger that created new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery in April, DC’s $90 million Batgirl movie was scrapped in the final stages of production, and plans for Wonder Woman 3 were cast aside last month.

Gunn is the writer-director who made the Guardians of the Galaxy household names for Marvel and revived The Suicide Squad for DC, before signing on to revamp DC Studios last year.

Safran has produced many films for Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema, including Gunn’s The Suicide Squad as well as Aquaman, Shazam and the horror films in The Conjuring universe.

In their announcement on Tuesday, Gunn and Safran laid out their vision for the first phase of a planned decade-long DCU storyline, which they dubbed ‘Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters.’

The first film of the new phase will be Superman: Legacy, tentatively set for release on July 11, 2025.

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New DC Studios bosses James Gunn (left) and Peter Safran (right) have defended their decision not to bring back Henry Cavill as Superman as they reboot the DC Universe

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Gunn remained cryptic about Ezra Miller’s future in the DCU following the actor’s guilty plea in a criminal trespassing case earlier this month

Gunn is writing the Superman movie, which is described as about Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.

No casting decisions have been announced, aside from the exclusion of Cavill, a well-liked actor who starred as the man of steel in three DC films prior to the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery last year.

The first phase of the DCU will launch after several inherited projects that are set to debut in the next two years – including The Flash, with Ezra Miller, which Gunn said ‘resets the entire DC Universe’.

Gunn remained cryptic about Miller’s future in the DCU following the actor’s guilty plea in a criminal trespassing case earlier this month, saying there is ‘nothing that prohibits’ any previously cast actors from reprising their roles in the new universe, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Safran said that following Miller’s involvement in a series of criminal investigations and scandals, studio executives are focused on supporting the actor, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

‘Ezra is completely committed to their recovery. We are fully supportive of that journey they are on right now,’ said Safran.

‘When the time is right, when they are ready to have that discussion, we will all figure out what the best path forward. But right now, they are completely focused on their recovery. And in our conversation with them, in the last couple of months, it feels like they are making enormous progress,’ he added.

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New DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU slate will launch with Superman: Legacy on July 11, 2025, described as about Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing

Following the 2025 Superman movie, an uncast in-universe Batman film is also coming at an unknown date: The Brave and the Bold.

It is billed a Batman and Robin tale inspired by Grant Morrison’s comic series, focused on Damian Wayne, Batman’s son with supervillain Talia al-Ghul, as Robin.

Another planned film is The Authority, about an ensemble of superheroes who protect the planet with extreme methods.

Also coming is Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, based on Tom King’s comics, and a big-screen standalone for the Swamp Thing.

Television plans include Lanterns, an eight-hour detective series, scheduled to stream on HBO Max.

Other TV projects include Waller, with Viola Davis reprising her Suicide Squad role as Amanda Waller, and Paradise Lost, the origin story of Themyscira, the island where Wonder Woman was born.

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New DC Studios bosses James Gunn (above) and Peter Safran have unveiled their plans for a revamped and newly unified DC Universe of films and television series

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An uncast in-universe Batman film is also coming at an unknown date: The Brave and the Bold, a Batman and Robin tale focused on Batman’s son with supervillain Talia al-Ghul as Robin

The DCU reboot also includes an animated television series, Creature Commandos, in which Waller forms a black ops team out of monstrous prisoners, is in production.

At the same time, the studio will release stories that fall outside this central DC Universe narrative, dubbed DC Elseworlds, as with the comic books. One example is Joker: Folie a Deux, the sequel to the 2019 Oscar-nominated drama.

Robert Pattinson’s Batman will also return in Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II, opening October 3, 2025 — another Elseworlds film outside the main continuity.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates also is working on a script for a Superman project in which a black actor portrays the man of steel, as a DC Elseworlds project.

Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav is hoping to reap the financial rewards of a reinvigorated DC franchise.

The media company’s shares have fallen 43 percent in the past year as the company aims to deliver $3 billion in savings from combining Warner Media and Discovery Communications.

‘The stakes are enormous,’ said Safran, who has produced two ‘Aquaman’ films and two ‘Shazam’ movies. ‘It’s a brand that was in somewhat chaos, and it’s an opportunity to build an extraordinary stand-alone studio.’