Superman director James Gunn reveals surprise Marvel star’s big role in the DC flick

Superman director James Gunn has revealed Bradley Cooper plays the titular hero’s father Jor-El in the DC movie.

The 58-year-old filmmaker collaborated with the A Star Is Born actor, 50, on the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Marvel - in which Cooper voiced Rocket Raccon - and Gunn has now revealed Cooper will feature in Superman as the hero’s Kryptonian father.

Speaking with Jake’s Takes, Gunn said: “Really, Bradley’s just doing me a favor. He’s a friend. We’ve stayed in close contact since the Guardians movies, and I admire him greatly as an actor and as a director.

“I just said, ‘Hey, will you do me a favor? Come down, go to England, we’re going to shoot you in a 3D environment, make a hologram of you, and you can play Jor-El.’ He was like, ‘Okay.’”

When asked whether Cooper’s Jor-El could appear elsewhere in a future DC Universe (DCU) project, Gunn teased: “You never know. It’s possible.”

Cooper won’t be the only Guardians of the Galaxy alum to feature in Superman, as two of the robots found in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude are voiced by Pom Klementieff and Michael Rooker - who portrayed Mantis and Yondu, respectively, in the Marvel trilogy.

Superman follows the titular hero (David Corenswet) as he tries to balance his human and Kryptonian lives, all while Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) does everything in his power to bring about his downfall.

Superman - which lands in cinemas on July 11 - is set to be the first movie in Gunn’s DCU, and Corenswet recently stressed the director’s cinematic universe will differ from others as the DCU will prioritise the individual stories in each film rather than an overarching plan for the wider franchise.

The actor explained to Screen Rant: “If people knew what goes into getting a movie together and making a movie, they'd understand that if you stick too closely to the plan, you're going to end up compromising on the things that are actually important, and the things that keep people coming back to the theater and get people wanting to show their kids the movies that they saw.

“So that's the guiding light for him and [co-DC head] Peter [Safran] moving forward.

“There are some things coming up, but that's the main principle and that's a good person to be working for.”

Even so, Corenswet admitted he knew “essentially nothing” about the future of the DCU.

He said: “I mean, [I know] essentially nothing. Essentially just that [Gunn] means it when he says that no plan is better than the quality of the scripts and the directors who he and Peter have to do them.

“I don't know very much about the comic book fandom, and the idea of getting a timeline announcement. I know very little about that. But I know it's a thing, and I know that, for better or for worse, they will compromise a timeline rather than compromise a film.

“They want to make good movies and good television shows, and they want them to be worth watching, and worth rewatching.”