After years of speculation, Henry Cavill is indeed returning to the DC Extended Universe as the Man of Steel.
“Hey everyone — I wanted to wait until the weekend was over before posting this because I wanted to give you all a chance to watch ‘Black Adam,’” the British actor, 39, said Monday in an Instagram video, referencing the Dwayne Johnson comic-book flick that just premiered.
“But now that plenty of you have, it’s official: I’m back.”
Spoiler alert: Superman’s familiar face shows up unannounced in the end credits of Dwayne Johnson’s record-breaking superhero turn, which brought in $67 million in ticket sales this past weekend. That’s the biggest opening weekend Johnson has seen for a movie in which he’s the leading man.
Henry Cavill makes a dramatic entrance in the middle of the movie’s end credits as Superman, descending after Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller drops in on Johnson’s Black Adam by drone. In good-cop/bad-cop style, the confrontation unfolds: Waller issues a not-so-veiled threat to Black Adam about what might happen were he to leave his home country of Kahndaq. Superman, however, just wants to talk.
“The image you see on this post and what you saw on ‘Black Adam’ are just a very small taste of what’s to come,” Cavill said in his video. “So there’s a lot to be thankful for, and I’ll get to that in time. But I wanted to thank you guys most of all.
“Thank you for your support and thank you for your patience. I promise it will be all worth it.”
Cavill currently plays Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s “The Witcher” and Sherlock Holmes in the streamer’s “Enola Holmes” movie series. He most recently played Superman in 2017’s “Justice League,” which was rereleased as the recut “Zach Snyder’s Justice League” in 2021. There was also “Man of Steel” in 2013 and “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” in 2016.
But the actor’s future in the DC Extended Universe was a mystery until now.
“A very small taste of what’s to come, my friends,” the caption on Cavill’s post says. “The dawn of hope renewed. Thank you for your patience, it will be rewarded.”
The plan at this moment is for Cavill to appear in at least one stand-alone Superman movie, the Hollywood Reporter said Monday, though no writer or director is attached yet. After the deal closed, Cavill shot his part of the “Black Adam” credits sequence last month in London.