Lois & Clark star Dean Cain warned that director James Gunn’s new Superman may be so “woke” that it “hurts the numbers on the movie.”
Speaking to TMZ, Cain, 58, said it was a “mistake” for Gunn “to say ‘it’s an immigrant thing,’” because it will alienate supporters of Donald Trump’s massive deportations.
“For Superman, it was ‘truth, justice, and the American way.’ Well, they dropped that,” Cain added. “They came up with ‘truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.’ Changing beloved characters, I don’t think is a great idea.”
DC announced in 2021 that Superman’s new motto would drop the “American way” part to “better reflect the storylines that we are telling across DC and to honor Superman’s incredible legacy of over 80 years of building a better world.”
Cain played Superman from 1993 to 1997 in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and has since been a vocal proponent of right-wing causes.
His comments come after Gunn told The Times over the weekend that Superman is “the story of America. An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”
Conservative commentators on Fox News immediately complained about being “lectured” at by Hollywood, as ICE carries out Trump’s deportation policies by detaining and deporting thousands of people.
“It’s being portrayed as a real negative thing that we want people to follow our immigration laws, which is insane to me,” Cain complained.
Gunn doubled down on his comments right away, however, when he told The Times, “screw” the “jerks out there who are just not kind and will take it as offensive just because it is about kindness.”
“I’m rooting for it to be a success, but I don’t like that last political comment,” Cain told TMZ. “It’s not going to tank it like Snow White,” he added, referring to the right-wing backlash to changes made by Disney in that live-action remake, “but I don’t think it’s going to help.”
Cain is looking forward to seeing Gunn’s take on the character because he thinks Gunn will bring “a sense of humor” back to Superman, but said Gunn and others need to be “educated” about “the immigration situation.”
“The ‘American way’ is immigrant-friendly, tremendously immigrant friendly,” Cain said, “But there are rules…There have to be limits, because we can’t have everybody in the United States. We can’t have everybody, society will fail.”
