By One of the biggest debates that come with any Superman film comes down to one simple bit of clothing – trunks or no trunks.
The red undies worn on the outside were a signature element of the character’s design in the early days but have mostly been missing from recent incarnations of the character such as the versions played by Henry Cavill or Tyler Hoechlin (the latter does wear them in flashbacks to his earlier days).
With James Gunn’s upcoming “Superman,” that debate raged as well though set photos quickly revealed that star David Corenswet does indeed sport them in his version of the character.
Speaking with Comicbook about that, Gunn confirmed that it was Corenswet himself who made the argument that led to the trunks being included – something Gunn himself wasn’t initially planning on doing:
“I was on the ‘no trunks’ team for a long time, and Zack [Snyder] said that when he was doing it, he tried a billion different trunk versions as we did. And I kept going back to no trunks, no trunks, no trunks. And I’m like, well, ‘Let’s just grind it out. Let’s just keep trying trunks and see what happens.’ And David [Corenswet] said something to me that really affected me.
We were trying on all these different versions, and we screen-tested with trunks and no trunks. And one of the things David said is that Superman wants kids to not be afraid of him. He’s an alien. He’s got these incredible powers. He shoots beams out of his eyes, can blow the truck over. He’s this incredibly powerful, could be considered scary, individual and he wants people to like him. He wants to be a symbol of hope and positivity.
He dresses like a professional wrestler, he dresses in a way that makes people unafraid of him, that shows that. That really clicked in for me. And I think trying to pretend that Superman’s costume doesn’t have some frivolity to it, at its base, trying to make it look serious is silly because he is a superhero.
He’s the first one, brightly colored, and that’s who he is. So that’s where we landed and, eventually, we all came to a place where almost all of us agreed on the trunks.”
The result is square cut trunks that are bright red, more akin to the Christopher Reeve version than the Brandon Routh maroon minis. “Superman” is set to hit theaters on July 11th 2025.
The post Corenswet Settled “Superman” Trunks Debate appeared first on Dark Horizons.
