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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the emotionally packed first trailer for James Gunn‘s highly anticipated Superman film, which hits theaters on July 11, 2025. The wordless teaser quickly establishes the grounded yet fantastical world that Gunn has been promising.
The first teaser trailer is filled with exciting moments, rad character reveals, and surprisingly it begins with an injured Superman being thrown into the snowy wastelands that hide the Fortress of Solitude. Battered and broken, he can barely move. As he closes his eyes, he recalls his life in Metropolis, which leads to our first big reveal and talking point.
Lois and Clark Already Know Each Other
This has been one of the big talking points from Gunn on the Superman press tour. We see in this trailer that Clark and Lois (David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan) are already established colleagues at The Daily Planet before the movie begins. We also see Clark arriving at the office and holding his copy of today’s paper as Lois works at her desk. The pair’s dynamic already being established is an interesting gambit, and one that fits into Gunn’s vision for a world in which Superman exists and is neither the only superhero out there or a stranger to his city.
Speaking of which, when we return to the snowy wilds where Supes is trying to recover he’s managed to purse his lips together, letting out a long whistle…
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Meet Krypto the Superdog
Yep! The internet went wild when Gunn revealed that DC’s goodest boy would be starring in his iteration of Superman, but so far we’d only seen an image of Superman and Krypto with their backs to the screen. Here we get to experience the super-powered canine in action for the first time, plowing through the snow toward his injured friend. When Krypto arrives, Clark requests that the shaggy dog take him home and the pup obliges, gripping his master’s cape in his mouth. Gunn teased that their journey together is not as simple as it seems. “His relationship with Krypto is complicated. He’s far from the best dog.”
In the comics, it should be noted Krypto has generally been depicted as a good boy when it comes to Superman, even though they arrived on different ships. First introduced in Adventure Comics #210 (1955) and created by Otis Binder and Curt Swan, the Kryptonian dog was revealed to have been sent on a prototype space vessel to Earth by Jor-El before the alien scientist placed his infant son in the final design of the rocket. Unfortunately, Krypto’s own vessel was knocked off course and only arrived on Earth years later—after Kal-El was a teenager named Clark. It remains to be seen if they’ll have similar trajectories in this movie.
Either way, this trailer moment also leads us to our first glimpse of Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and Clark together in Kansas before the score swells. We then see Superman saving a young girl from an explosion and a kid raising a Superman banner as he cries for his help in the middle of a war zone. Some of it frankly echoes the enormity of Zack Snyder’s vision of the Man of Tomorrow where montages would see Superman intercede in modern crises.
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Lex Luthor Already Hates Superman
Nicholas Hoult is no stranger to superheroes thanks to his stint as Beast in the Fox X-Men movies, but now he’s taking on one of the biggest and baddest villains in comic book history. Yep, we get our first peek at Hoult’s Luthor here, and he looks furious and incredibly rich.
This might mark the first time we have a Lex Luthor fans recognize from modern comics. While Gene Hackman’s dastardly master criminal is great campy fun in the original Richard Donner Superman movie of 1978, and close to how the character at times resembled on the page, ever since the 1980s, Luthor has been a malevolent and powerfully wealthy presence in Metropolis ruling it like a modern day billionaire. Technically, Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor erred closer to the general characterization in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but through a tech bro/Social Network lens that departed from much of the spirit of John Byrne’s reinterpretation of Luthor.
At the trailer launch we attended, Hoult described how he sees Luthor’s relationship with the blue-eyed boy scout. “He’s smart and ruthless; he has to outmaneuver Superman on certain levels because he can’t match him in others. But there’s also something about this character, hopefully, from my standpoint, where even though you perhaps don’t agree with his process there’s an element where you can understand on some levels where he’s coming from and why perhaps what he’s pushing as his ideology is better for humanity.”
While we don’t know what that ideology is yet, something that’s noticeably absent from the trailer are the members of the Authority. Could Lex be in cahoots with them? Perchance trying to start a new league of superheroes? Either way, we see Lex holding a pistol that we’d bet has some kryptonite bullets in the chamber.
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Let’s Talk About Metamorpho
One of the most exciting pieces of casting in the sprawling Superman universe is Barry’s NoHo Hank himself, Anthony Carrigan, as Metamorpho. We get a momentary glimpse of his gray face and striking blue eyes but that’s not the only Metamorpho moment. After Superman walks through the streets where he’s being pelted with trash, he heads into a large empty building that we see via a small lit up screen is none other than Stagg Industries.
First introduced in 1965’s Metamorpho #1, Stagg Enterprises—but Industries in the trailer—was owned by Simon Stagg in the comics where he employed Rex Mason, aka Carrigan’s Metamorpho! It’ll be interesting to see how Metamorpho and Stagg Industries play into the wider story, especially as this ends up being the first moment we meet the film’s other heroes.
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Superman Isn’t the Only Hero
It’s been clear since the outset that James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU was going to be inhabited by all kinds of superheroes and Superman would feature a smorgasbord of capes. We see a smattering of them here, beginning with Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner (aka one of the Green Lanterns!). Guy arrives in Stagg Industries with his iconic bowl cut. His Lantern powers look great and he’s not alone.
We quickly see Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) flying through the sky and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) facing down an unseen foe before he reappears in a large red forcefield. With heroes like this it’s a curious thing to wonder if they are members of any kind of society or, ahem, league. Nothing in the trailer confirms that but we do get a few good villains. Aside from Lex, we also see a huge kaiju-like monster breathing fire into a skyscraper in Metropolis.
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Love and Robots
Before the teaser is done we get some more Lois and Clark moments as they make out in front of a giant eye that could just as easily be Brother Eye as it could be Solaris or even the Emerald Empress’ Orb. All we know is that the pair are smooching! So clearly more than just co-workers! Speaking of tender moments, we also see Superman in the snow cradling a robot who is more than likely Kelex from the Fortress of Solitude, hinting that we’ll see an attack on Supes’ safest space during the events of the film. Our final moment sees Superman and Lois hug, revealing that she’ll be aware of his secret identity for at least some of the highly anticipated film. Once again, the status quo of most Superman origin stories is absent.
This draws our mind again to the Post-Crisis era of DC Comics, which lasted from the 1980s through the 2000s. In that more recent incarnation of the canon, Clark Kent proses marriage to Lois Lane in Action Comics #662 (1991) before she ever knows he is Superman. She accepts, and only weeks later does he confess his secret. This suggests she loves the man more than the godlike hero, and it will be interesting to learn if Gunn goes in a similar direction.
Interestingly, as the trailer comes to an end you’ll notice that there’s no title card. Instead throughout we get a promise that “It Begins” as well as the new DC Studios logo, teasing that this is just the beginning of things to come for the burgeoning shared universe.
When asked why he chose not to include the title, Gunn laughed and told journalists, “It just felt good.”
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