The last few decades of Superman on the big screen created an unfortunate myth about the character: Superman was “boring,” “too powerful,” “uninteresting” and then, bizarrely, “grumpy and brooding” in the Zack Snyder Universe.

James Gunn has recalled the “terrible” way Henry Cavill was fired as Superman, admitting the British actor was treated “unfairly”. The Guardians of the Galaxy director was hired by Warner Bros to oversee the studios’ DC output after a string of flops, and one of the first jobs on his list was to hire a brand new actor to play the man of steel.