James Gunn stepped out of a simmering frying pan and into a fire — or an inferno — when he accepted the job to correct course for Warner Bros.’ floundering DC brand. It’s a job no one reportedly wanted and that’s easy to see when fandom is loyal to Zack Snyder and more so Henry Cavill whose flight as Superman was unceremoniously grounded in December.
This segment of fans who wanted Cavill’s more cheerful take on the Man of Steel to reach fruition, rather than a total reboot, has been hounding Gunn in the comment section of his social media for weeks with no sign of letting up. Even as he juggles finishing his obligations to Marvel and is making Instagram posts about his pets, they make their voices heard.
User @edgedmoon1141 — a clear Snyder and Cavill fan who evidently would like one or both back in play — made a comment insulting Gunn’s cat. He also created a tag with Cavill’s name misspelled in it, writing, “F*** your cat dude. You pissed off an entire franchise worth of fans. Nobody gives a rats a** about your cat. #Cavilisclark.”
Gunn was quick to jump on the spelling of “Cavill” as “Cavil” and roast someone back for once. “It’d be great if at the very least you knew how to spell an actor’s name if you were going to be so outraged,” he retaliated. Some of the film and comic media is siding with the director here but the pushback continues.
There are commenters who hope Gunn gets fired pronto before he has a chance to begin and announce his DCU slate. As one reply by user @brethart6 goes, “Your fired cavil the mantle. It will come full circle and someone will fire your a**.” In a sort of ironic twist, the name Cavill is misspelled yet again.
The actor’s departure has his fan base more fired up than usual as it came two months after his return in Black Adam and Cavill himself confidently proclaimed on social media he was back for the long haul, indicating things were being worked out behind the scenes. If that was the case, James Gunn and producer Peter Safran’s co-promotion to heads of DC Studios sidelined things.
Gunn tried to clear the air a few weeks ago and prove he would not be bullied or dissuaded from the direction he and Safran are taking DC, but he ended up inciting already upset Snyderverse fans more by using words like “impolite” and “obnoxious” to describe a fervent group he wrote off as one small segment of fandom.