Superman Director James Gunn Confirms What We Suspected About Man Of Tomorrow's Plot

We may not know exactly what director and DC Studios co-head James Gunn has up his sleeve with the DC Universe as a whole, but he's at least opening up about a highly-anticipated film still to come. After "Superman" flew into theaters this summer to the sweet sound of cash registers popping off at the box office, Warner Bros. wasted little time moving ahead with its follow-up film. When the news recently broke that the sequel would officially be titled "Man of Tomorrow," fans started to put together the clues as to what the plot would likely shape up to be. David Corenswet's Clark Kent/Superman, Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor, and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane were easy locks to return and reprise their roles. But with a universe-worth of possibilities to take the story next, how could we narrow down the field a bit more?

Fortunately, Gunn did it for us. In a recent interview with prolific radio host Howard Stern for "The Howard Stern Show" on SiriusXM, the filmmaker opened up about his next directorial project. Though he remained light on actual details, he at least confirmed what many a comic book fan likely deemed to be obvious right from the start. Yes, we can safely assume that "Man of Tomorrow" will involve the Man of Steel and his arch-nemesis reluctantly teaming up in order to fend off an even greater threat. We'll let Gunn take it from here. As he told Stern:

"It is a story about Lex Luthor and Superman having to work together, to a certain degree, against a much, much bigger threat. And it's more complicated than that, but that's a big part of it. It's as much a Lex movie as it is a Superman movie [...] I loved working with Nic Hoult, who played Lex. I relate to the character of Lex Luthor, sadly, so I really wanted to create something extraordinary with the two of them. Oh man, I just love the script so much. I'm excited for people to see the movie."

Initially, when this upcoming "Superman" movie was described as something different and less straightforward than a simple sequel, many assumed that James Gunn was simply overthinking or being needlessly coy about it. If he was returning to direct another movie with David Corenswet as Superman alongside a number of other DC characters, many of whom were introduced in the first film, what else could it possibly be besides a standard sequel? We might have the answer to that, as Gunn explained to Howard Stern that "Man of Tomorrow" will be just as much a Lex Luthor movie as it is a Superman one. The news that the two foes will have to team up isn't much of a bombshell, to be fair — we intuited as much from the various pieces of comic book artwork posted by Gunn, Corenswet, and Nicholas Hoult on the day the news was first announced. But now that this has been officially confirmed, it's worth wondering about the next major question mark: Exactly who will Superman and Lex be fighting?

Gunn conspicuously avoids going into specifics on this front, but there are plenty of clues for us to piece together ourselves. It stands to reason that a xenophobe like Lex would only be driven to such desperate measures (which, as we remember from his final scene in "Superman," would include either being released or broken out of Belle Reve prison) if another super-powerful extraterrestrial invaded planet Earth. We're not likely to double down on Darkseid or even his stooge Steppenwolf this early in Gunn's DC reboot or so soon after director Zack Snyder trod similar ground in "Zack Snyder's Justice League." We know that the upcoming "Supergirl" will deal with Milly Alcock's title character coming up against Jason Momoa's Lobo, and that a "Lanterns" HBO series is also due to arrive. So who could that leave us with?

Perhaps a Brainiac appearance is in the cards, as we speculated here. We know that Gunn actually considered the super-smart android/cyborg for "Superman" once upon a time before switching gears, so could this be his way of getting back to his original plan? Only time will tell. "Man of Tomorrow" is due to hit theaters July 9, 2027.