Warning: The article contains spoilers for Black Adam.
The cat is out of the bag when it comes to everyone’s favorite Superman returning to the DC Extended Universe and Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson, for one, is celebrating that fact.
Johnson shared a video that Henry Cavill posted to his Instagram page on Monday, showing off his new look as the Big Blue Boy Scout. “We fought for years to bring you back,” Johnson said in part in a Twitter post. He continued,
“They always said no. But to [Black Adam producers Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia,] & myself ‘no’ was not an option. We can’t build out our DCEU w/out the world’s greatest superhero. And fans will always come first. Welcome home. I’ll see you down the road.”
Technically, we saw Cavill’s Superman just last year in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. And while that was a welcome appearance, that film was not technically a new DCEU installment, but more of a remastered version of an inferior film that came before. And ZSJL was a straight-to-streaming release on HBO Max, too.
Before that much-talked-about mid-credit scene in Black Adam, Cavill’s Superman was last seen on the big screen five long years ago, in the Joss Whedon-directed 2017 film Justice League. Since then, the Superman character has only ever appeared in faceless cameos, such as a scene at the end of 2018’s Shazam!, in which Superman’s head is cut off from the frame, and an appearance earlier this year in the DCEU show Peacemaker, in which the character is completely cast in shadow.
Even though Black Adam has generally been winning over audiences overall, that Cavill cameo has certainly helped to generate strong interest amongst fans who have long petitioned for his return. And it seems we have Johnson and company’s persistence, as well as a regime change at Warner Bros. Discovery, to thank for Cavill’s return.
Check out Black Adam at a theater near you today.