This Failed Superman Pitch Was Way More Controversial Than Zack Snyder's Take

Despite being one of the world's most popular superheroes, Superman got the short end of the cinematic stick for quite some time. Following his 2013 solo live-action film, "Man of Steel," he was relegated to team-up movies and random cameos in the likes of "Black Adam" and "The Flash." That was rectified by 2025's "Superman," directed by James Gunn, but the hero's standing in the zeitgeist may have been very different if Warner Bros. pursued a different path for him originally. 

Matthew Vaughn knows his way around superhero movies, having previously directed "Kick-Ass" and "X-Men: First Class." Vaughn revealed on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast that he and comic book writer Mark Millar pitched a "Superman" film trilogy before "Man of Steel" that would have utilized Lex Luthor, General Zod, and Brainiac as villains. The tone also would have harkened back to the "Superman" movies directed by Richard Donner decades ago. 

But one aspect of his trilogy may have raised some eyebrows, as he explained: "Our big idea was that Krypton doesn't blow up. It does eventually ... When Superman is grown up, suddenly there's a mass exodus and all hell breaks loose." A central tenet of Superman's backstory is that Krypton is gone, so the idea of Kryptonians arrives on Earth en masse, which likely would have put Clark Kent at odds with Zod, would definitely be a change of pace. But would it have been as divisive as the infamous "Man of Steel" neck snap?

Superman being the Last Son of Krypton is critical for thematic resonance in his stories. It makes it so that Earth truly is his home, because no one else from Krypton survived — unless you're counting his cousin (Supergirl), their dog (Krypto), a Kryptonian monkey named Beppo (yes, really), and pretty much the entire House of Zod, including anyone else who was in the Phantom Zone. But aside from all that (depending on the continuity), Superman exists on his own, so it would have been interesting to see what audiences thought if Krypton lasted a little longer. 

While Matthew Vaughn has worked with Marvel in the past, he's yet to write or direct anything for DC. But that could always change: The DC screen universe has been rebooted under James Gunn and Peter Safran, and Vaughn mentioned on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast that he'd been in touch with the pair. It's safe to say his Superman pitch won't be used, but there are probably plenty of other projects in the pipeline for Vaughn to work on. And he did work with Henry Cavill on the 2024 spy thriller "Argylle," so at least he got to direct a Superman actor in some capacity.