Fans Are Wondering How the Superman Movie Is Going to Deal With All Those Side Characters: 'There's a Lot Going on Here'

The man of steel is back — almost, at least. The latest trailer for James Gunn’s upcoming film Superman has been released ahead of its July launch and it’s chock full of excitement. Between lead David Corenswet’s performance and the top-notch fighting power of Superman’s beloved dog Krypto, there’s a lot to dig into. But it seems as though the main thing fans are curious about in the wake of the trailer is the sheer amount that appears to be going on in this film, and how it plans to properly deal with all of it.

“Strong start to the trailer,” one Redditor wrote on an r/Superman post in the hours following the trailer’s release. “But then practically every shot was another new character and I started worrying how the movie was going to tell a coherent story.” Another added: “I’m gonna love it, he looks great as Superman, he looks great as Clark Kent, but the movie looks like it might be a bit busy, there's a lot going on here.”

“Now this, I love this trailer. From someone who never really liked the dark DC vibe I’m excited to experience a true comic superhero movie. But am I the only one who is worried for all the cameos that are in the trailer?” another fan wrote in the comments on the post. “Like I swear I was counting like 8 friends and foes in this movie. I know they want to set up James Gunn’s DCU with this but I would prefer it to be less heavy on cameo fodder and take more time to develop the characters that are needed to tell the story that they’re trying to tell.”

To be fair, the trailer does feature a whole host of characters, including Clark Kent’s Earth parents, love interest Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and several different sets of lofty villains, including the central antagonist Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) — but it looks as though for as many worried fans as there are about the film maybe being a bit bloated, tons of folks are excited at the prospect all of these character introductions might bring.

All the characters revealed so far in Superman:

• Superman
• Lois Lane
• Lex Luthor
• Mister Terrific
• Guy Gardner
• Hawkgirl
• Metamorpho
• The Engineer
• The Hammer of Boravia
• Ultraman
• Rick Flag Sr.
• Supergirl
• Maxwell Lord
• Kryptonian robots, including Kelex
• Krypto
• Jonathan Kent
• Martha Kent
• Perry White
• Jimmy Olsen
• Steve Lombard
• Cat Grant
• Ron Troupe
• Eve Teschmacher
• Otis

“I'm glad there's a lot going on. We've seen him fight Lex & Zod countless times at this point, I want to see him completely overwhelmed and emerge as a symbol of hope,” one user wrote in response to the gripes, while another added. “It’s side characters, less cameos. Like Iron Man had several side characters.”

A third fan also added that, for what it’s worth, this is pretty par for the course. “I don't feel like it's such a big deal honestly. Movies usually need secondary/side characters,” the person commented. “Gunn here is just filling in those spots with rather big names, but I doubt he'll give them more than what they need.”

Superman: Behind the Scenes Cast and Character Images

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It's worth noting that in Gunn's Superman, and indeed across the rebooted DCU, superheroes are a known quantity. The director has said he was uninterested in telling yet another Superman origin story (we've had enough!), and so there won't be any time wasted there. Similarly, it looks like superheroes and supervillains are part of the public consciousness, so Superman will perhaps spend less time fussing over explaining who, what, and why the likes of Green Lantern is in town.

That said, the notion that the movie might be a little overstuffed — If you’re anything like us, you probably can’t wait to find out the runtime — isn’t exactly deterring fans at first glance. “It looks good but wondering how they’re going to shoehorn so many different characters into one movie,” one user wrote, to which another fan replied, “It's not any more characters than the average comic book movie. It's fine.” A third user even quipped: “Kinda like Guardians of the Galaxy…?” Honestly? Touché.

Ultimately, Gunn has spoken multiple times about the fact that the film is not an ensemble piece. “At the middle of everything is Clark, Lois, and Lex,” he said at the beginning of 2025 during an Instagram Live session. “It’s about these three characters.” It remains to be seen how, exactly, he pulls that off.

Superman flies into theaters on July 11, 2025.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.