Yesterday dropped a bombshell when a report claimed that Henry Cavill was out as DC's Superman. Nobody was expecting anything like that to happen, so the report was a shock. However, now a new report claims that while some details of the original report might be true, the conclusion, that Cavill will not portray Superman again, is actually completely bogus because there have been literally zero discussions on that topic. Let's break this down.
So yesterday the claim that Henry Cavill was out as Superman was anchored by a couple of different points. First, the fact that DC and Warner Bros. were trying to get Cavill to cameo in next year's Shazam! as Superman, but the two sides were unable to come to an agreement, and that there were no active plans for any future Superman movie, as the studio's focus was currently being given to a Supergirl film project instead. According to TMZ, both of these points are more or less accurate. Cavill did reject the Shazam! cameo over money, and there is no currently planned next Superman movie in development. However, it seems that because there is no next Superman movie currently in development, there have been no actual discussions with Cavill (or anybody else) about whether or not he would play the role when and if such a movie was in the cards, so claims that he's out are premature.
If this story seemed bizarre yesterday, it's only more so now. Warner Bros. has released a brief statement which, if read with this information, would seem to fall in line with this claim. It states that the WB relationship with Henry Cavill is "unchanged" and that they have made no decisions regarding upcoming Superman movies. It can be read as a statement that says "hey, everything is fine" but at the same time, it doesn't come out and directly repudiate the original report, which the studio could certainly have done if it's not true.
If we take this report at face value it would seem to simply leave things up in the air, which is probably where we should keep them now that we have multiple reports claiming different things. Henry Cavill has made a post to Instagram since the first report came out, but, needless to say, his response doesn't clear anything up in any way.
It's possible that, whether or not Henry Cavill is officially done as the Man of Steel, we might not know it for some time to come. The fact that no Man of Steel 2 is in active development seems to be agreed upon and it may not be until a new Superman movie comes along that anything official is stated.
