James Gunn Was Convinced To Give The ‘Superman’ Costume Red Trunks By Star David Corenswet Who Sees The Man Of Steel As A Babyface Wrestler Who Wants To Be Liked
James Gunn wants Superman to be a return to tradition and one of the details that stands out in that respect is the return of the red trunks.
They’ve been a staple of the costume forever, but that changed in more recent years as various artists and filmmakers like Zack Snyder took a less-is-more approach to the design.
Much of what we attribute to the Man of Steel could be identified although the outfits got sleeker in the movies, on TV, and in the comic books starting with The New 52. After more than a decade, Gunn decided to go the other way.
However, he didn’t know the struggle he was in for. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t that heated; it was heated for a while. I was on the no trunks team for a long time. For a long time,” he told Collider during a set visit. Gunn wasn’t alone in that dilemma, of course, as noted above.
“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,” Gunn continued.
Ultimately, they switched to Team Trunks and the reason why traces to the film’s star David Corenswet who has to wear the suit and do the heavy lifting. The actor persuaded Gunn into framing the question from the view of kids who look up to Superman.
“David [Corenswet] said something to me that really affected me. We were trying on all these different versions, and we screened tested with trunks and no trunks. And one of the things David said is that Superman wants kids to not be afraid of him,” the director added.
He noted that the hero is an alien with incredible power that could be “considered scary.” Aware of that, the Krytonian wants to be liked and seen as “a symbol of hope,” naturally, to live up to the meaning behind his insignia.
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“He wants to be a symbol of hope and positivity,” Gunn explained. “So he dresses like a professional wrestler, he dresses in a way that makes people unafraid of him, that shows that.” All the pieces then started falling together.
“I was like, 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,” Gunn said.
That’s a sign the Man of Tomorrow is seriously going back to his roots, but we shall see for certain in July.
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