Superman’s Next Big Challenge: David Corenswet’s Fight Against Typecasting

Up, up and away! This looks like a job for Superman’s agents.

After breaking out as “Superman” in the title role, David Corenswet has become Hollywood’s newest leading man. But for the 31-year-old actor, his newfound superhero stardom is also the town’s most notorious career trap.

Corenswet must quickly leverage his breakout role into the right projects before the cape starts to feel like an albatross around his neck. “Superman” has won over critics and fans and delivered a second strong week of box office returns, with Corenswet’s performance being singled out as a particular highlight. He brings Superman back to his boy scout roots and makes the man of steel vulnerable and relatable.

But the career trajectory for actors who have portrayed Superman has been largely abysmal.

If Corenswet doesn’t capitalize on his newfound high profile, he could fall prey to the same typecasting fate that befell prior Superman actors, going all the way back to the 1940s with Kirk Alyn. Superman’s iconic status means the weight of that role is different from other superhero characters, allowing a Chris Pratt, for instance, to break away from his breakout “Guardians of the Galaxy” Starlord role in a way that Corenswet may find more challenging.

Corenswet — who wasn’t exactly an unknown before “Superman” with key roles in “Pearl” and “Hollywood” — is already locked into another project, with a starring role in the football drama “Mr. Irrelevant” as John Tuggle, the last player selected in the 1983 NFL draft, while DC Studios builds out the rest of the DC universe and figures out when we will see the new Man of Steel again. He is tapped to do at least one more DC Studios movie under contract, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.

“He should be doing what he’s doing,” a top talent agent told TheWrap. “An underdog sports story, like ‘Mr. Irrelevant,’ where he’s driving the story rather than the costume.”

The Superman Curse

Corenswet’s impending battle is one with a long legacy. Perhaps the best example of the Superman trap is Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal in the 1978 film. He so embodied the Man of Steel that it was hard for him to take other roles.

By 1988, Reeve’s film career was running on fumes, following a string of duds that included “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,” “The Aviator” and “Street Smart.”

In 1995, Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition. Reeve didn’t act much after that, although he did effectively appear in a made-for-TV “Rear Window” remake and on several episodes of the Superman-themed series “Smallville.”

Brandon Routh, meanwhile, failed to take full advantage of the 2006 redo “Superman Returns,” which garnered mixed reactions. While many of his co-stars, including Kate Bosworth, James Marsden and, for a while, Kevin Spacey, worked regularly, Routh never landed another starring role in a major feature film. Instead, he popped up in comic book adaptations “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night,” achieving more success on the small screen, once again within the DC universe, as The Atom on “Arrow,” and, later, as Superman once again during a “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event.

Henry Cavill, who starred in “Man of Steel,” “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and two different iterations of “Justice League,” achieved better career diversification, in spite of the limited Superman material he was given to work with (he barely got to play the other half of the character, the mild-mannered newspaper reporter Clark Kent).

Cavill starred in Netflix’s popular fantasy series “The Witcher,” broke out as the villain John Lark in Christopher McQuarrie’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” and became part of the “Enola Holmes” franchise. He has also formed a strong creative partnership with British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, who cast Cavill in his underrated “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (based on the 1960s spy series), the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced period action movie “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” and the upcoming thriller “In the Grey.”

But Cavill hit a hiccup when, a few months after publicly announcing his return as Superman after his “Black Adam” cameo, he had to do an about-face when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over the DC universe and rebooted the character.

It was Alyn’s career troubles that would later be known as the “Superman Curse,” with hardship and misfortune visiting those who played the character. Then, there was George Reeves who likewise struggled to find other roles and is largely remembered as much for his stint as Superman as his mysterious death (ruled a suicide but suspicious enough that many still believe he was murdered).

The Three Chrises: Marvel’s Mixed Result

Beyond the Superman Curse, there’s simply just the struggle to break out from a high-profile superhero character. Just look at the three “Chrises.”

Chris Pratt has achieved the most success outside of the superhero sphere, leaving most other actors who have appeared in a comic book-based property behind. His films have grossed over $14.1 billion globally, placing him as the fifth-highest-grossing film star of all time, thanks to franchises like “Jurassic World” and “Super Mario Bros.” Not that Pratt has been totally unscathed — Netflix’s pricey “The Electric State” was a dud earlier this year.

On the flip side, Chris Hemsworth has arguably struggled the most out of the three superpowered Chrises, failing to establish much box office success outside of the MCU.

He briefly partnered with Ron Howard on two ambitious films that underperformed – 2013’s “Rush” (budget of around $40 million and gross of around $98 million) and 2015’s “In the Heart of the Sea” (budget: $100 million, gross: $94 million) and worked with auteur Michael Mann on his hacker-themed “Blackhat,” which made less than $20 million on a budget of more than $70 million. He made “Snow White and the Huntsman” for Universal, which was successful (making almost $400 million on a budget of $170 million) but was then roped into the sequel/spin-off that centered around his character, “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” which disappointed with a worldwide haul of $165 million against a budget of $115 million.

Attempts to revamp franchises like “Ghostbusters,” “Men in Black” and an animated “Transformers” also fell flat.

Hemsworth’s biggest non-Thor mainstream success has come in the form of an unlikely Netflix action hit in 2020’s “Extraction” and its follow-up in 2023.

Somewhere in the middle is Chris Evans. Following the success of his “Captain America” trilogy, still considered to be some of the best and most creatively alive entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Evans struggled to establish himself as a name star. People, the popular saying went, cared about Captain America; not Chris Evans.

Since leaving the MCU, Evans has starred in big budget streaming movies like “The Gray Man” and “Ghosted,” which certainly paid well but left almost no impression. He also starred in “Red One,” an expensive, holiday-themed action movie which started life as a direct-to-streaming title for Amazon’s Prime Video service but had a brief theatrical run (it made $186 million worldwide on a budget reportedly north of $200 million). Sequels to “The Gray Man” and “Red One” were touted by their respective studios but have yet to materialize.

Even sure-bets like voicing the lead character in Pixar’s “Lightyear,” an expansion of its “Toy Story” universe, failed to launch, making just $226 million globally. What could have been a franchise wound up as a curio.

His role in Rian Johnson’s mystery “Knives Out” proved that, given the right role (and the correct ensemble), he could succeed, with the film grossing $313 million on a budget of just $40 million. And this year he co-starred in A24’s romantic drama “Materialists,” which has made almost $50 million against a budget of $20 million.

Clark Kent vs. David Corenswet

The David Corenswet story has yet to be fully told, and the actor is already off to a great start thanks to increasingly viral social media clips from the “Superman” press tour in which the actor’s unabashed “Star Wars” fandom and easy charm have taken hold.

Corenswet’s Juilliard training and pre-Superman work in well-received projects like “The Politician” and “We Own This City” may also provide the credibility that eluded previous Superman actors.

“I don’t believe there is any chance of David being typecast as Superman given his strong training as an actor, which he has demonstrated in his past work,” film producer Adrian Askarieh told TheWrap. “He also has that rare combination of leading man looks with acting chops, which should serve him well as he balances his DCU Superman duties with other roles.”

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