Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel deserves a lot of credit. The Christopher Reeve Superman movies had become such cultural icons for the character that the one time prior to Man of Steel that anybody tried to make a new Superman movie, they just tried to make a Christopher Reeve movie with different actors.

“That was really unfortunate,” Gunn continued. “So Peter and I [thought] the right thing to do was to sit down with [Cavill] and talk to him. And we sat down and we talked to him. He was an absolute gentleman, a great guy about it. He said, ‘The only thing I ask is that I’m able to reveal it myself as opposed to it coming from you guys.'”

Gunn shared that he had closed the deal to become the new head of DC Studios on the same day that Cavill said he was reprising the Superman role. Needless to say, the announcement came as a surprise to the Guardians of the Galaxy director. "I'm like, 'What is going on? We know what the plan is,'" Gunn told podcast host Josh Horowitz.