It’s fascinating to think how the DCEU could have turned out if Zack Snyder had opted to make a direct Man of Steel sequel instead of moving straight on to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The same month the 2013 blockbuster was released, David S. Goyer was tasked to write a second installment, before it was revealed shortly afterwards to be the crossover fans had been wanting to see for years instead.
Henry Cavill could have really done with another solo outing to put his own stamp on the character once the origin story was out of the way, after he swiftly found himself shunted to the sidelines of the mythology, and he still hasn’t made it back to the forefront. Indeed, the domino effect from Man of Steel is startling when you look at it now, with Snyder admitting that Warner Bros. hated Batman v Superman, which eventually culminated in the Justice League debacle, the reverberations of which are still being felt today through the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse campaign.
At no point have WB shown much interest in Cavill taking top billing in another standalone story, and that stance most likely isn’t going to change, either. In a new interview, though, Snyder admitted that he’d have loved to see Brainiac in a sequel, with the villain originally being heavily rumored for the project before it was reworked into Dawn of Justice.
“We talked about a Brainiac movie. But, I do think that the Kryptonians that are in the Phantom Zone are probably still around, and there was possibility for their return.”
Man of Steel 2 came close to getting off the ground a couple of times, with Matthew Vaughn and Christopher McQuarrie both circling the project, but it ultimately amounted to nothing. Of course, a reboot is in the works from J.J. Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates, but it would be an understatement to say that the news has proven to be divisive.