Back in Summer 2024, it’s safe to say all eyes were on Cleveland, Ohio. That’s when production on James Gunn’s Superman shifted to The Forest City and transformed several downtown blocks into a facsimile of Metropolis, complete with fake storefronts and a facade of the Daily Planet building. The city’s streets were swarmed with onlookers and paparazzi, all hoping to catch a glimpse of star David Corenswet in his newly revealed super-suit.
Amid all this chaos and hubbub, IGN was one of several outlets invited to the set to speak with the cast and crew of Superman. We previously showed you what we learned from Gunn himself, but equally fascinating was our conversation with production designer Beth Mickle, executive producer Chantal Nong, and costume designer Judiana McKovsky. The trio shed plenty of light on the thrill of transforming a major American city into Superman’s home, as well as the challenges involved in creating a new Fortress of Solitude and a new Superman costume. Read on to find out what we learned on-set, and why the “trunks or no trunks” debate raged right up until the eleventh hour.
How Superman Differs From Man of Steel
Obviously, Gunn isn’t the first director to reboot the Superman franchise on the big screen in the 21st Century. Just as Superman is the foundation for the larger DCU, Zack Snyder previously launched the DCEU with 2013’s Man of Steel. When asked how this particular reboot differs from Kal-El’s recent cinematic adventures, Mickle told the group it all comes down to tone.
“I feel like that's the biggest change that I see, tonally, is the Superman incarnations that we're most familiar with, at least from the 2000s, have been heavier and darker,” Mickle said. “It was very much a part of the tone that those movies had. It just put you into a heavier, heavier space. I think what we really wanted to do was really brighten everything up and really lighten it up and make it hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.”
Mickle continued, “That's really what we blend with the visuals. And the tone, the lighting, the cast, I mean, obviously they're just radiant, effervescent, upbeat... It's far more colorful than any of the other Superman films will be, you'll see. And we really derived our color from Superman's palette. It's lots of blues, reds, golds, but then oranges and greens interspersed and really try to keep it in the primary colors, secondary colors and bright, vivid, saturated color.”
"It's far more colorful than any of the other Superman films will be, you'll see. And we really derived our color from Superman's palette."Nong revealed that one of the other main goals with the film was to create a more timeless quality to Metropolis and its inhabitants, not unlike the Richard Donner’s movies or the DC Animated Universe. Superman may be set in the present, but the production design borrows liberally from many different decades.
“When you look up and down the street... the characters, the extras, the picture cars, the sets that we're doing, we want it to feel like it could be anywhere. It could be the '90s, could be 2000s, but maybe it's the '80s,” Nong said. “We do this contemporary just so that you get lost in the nostalgia of it, and it doesn't feel like precisely 2024 or 2025 movie. I think, like some of the leading words we've used are nostalgia, Americana, timelessness, bright, colorful, hopeful, and I don't feel like the superhero movies and definitely none of the Superman felt to that level before.”
“A perfect example is going to be our Daily Planet news office where it's this gorgeous, old, turn-of- the-century building, some great old phones. We brought in really timeless dressing, like tank desks and older mid-century desks, but that were just nicely kept,” Mickle added. “The idea is that they just haven't turned over and gotten new furniture in. But then the screens are modern and the phones are modern, and so it's like they updated the things that would have made sense technologically. So, the technology is actually what does keep us current. And a handful of cars that'll be in the 2010, 2020, a handful of those that'll make it in.”
You might be surprised to learn that the crew wasn’t focused much on establishing a clear visual tone for the larger DCU. Mickle indicated that this is one area where directors of each individual film or TV project are free to blaze their own trail
“I think the idea is for each movie to have its own specific feel and look and tone,” Mickle said. “But I think it was important for this first one coming out and for it being James's voice, and James's voice is often bright and colorful and visual. It was mostly sticking with James's tone, making sure that's what was the leading quote here. But we fully expected everybody else, every other film to make it their own and have their own tone.”
The Innate Goodness of Corenswet’s Superman
Gunn has been very clear on his approach to Superman from the beginning. His version of the Man of Steel is a fundamentally kind and decent guy living in a world where kindness and decency aren’t particularly valued traits. Nong told the reporters that this take is very much embodied in actor David Corenswet.
“This Superman is a guy who has never fit in, and yet there are so many ways that you can think about that,” Nong said. “But for James and for the movie, it's so much about his values. He's a really good, kind man. And if you think about goodness and kindness in the world right now, it's more anomalous than you'd like for it to be. That, I think, is really beautiful. And David very much embodies that. He's very low-key. He's such a good guy. He's always doing things for other people.”
Of course, it’s important that Corenswet be able to capture Clark Kent as well as Superman. Nong related an amusing story that illustrated just how much of Clark there is in Corenswet, even when he’s not actively performing.
‘We were in Atlanta [during preproduction],” Nong said. “I was in my office, and he had put his lunch in my fridge. And I was in a meeting, and he just… he's a big dude. And he was, at the time, gaining weight, so he was even bigger than normal. And he takes it from my tiny fridge, and then it's just like literally starts dropping some of it. I was howling, and then he just quickly exits the room and closes the door. And we were dying. It was just like Clark Kent just showed up in my office. And he hasn't shot a day, and we haven't rehearsed. That's just who he is.”
Transforming Cleveland Into Metropolis
Touring the outdoor set in downtown Cleveland was quite an experience. The attention to detail was immediately noticeable, with practically every street sign and storefront transformed into something referencing the Superman franchise, the wider DCU, or any number of other Easter eggs. The ever-present Jitters coffee shop from the Arrowverse was there, and there were subtler DC references, like the TV shop Quitely and Sons paying tribute to All-Star Superman artist Frank Quitely. According to Mickle, “every street name has lore to it, has something attached to it.”
Interestingly, for all the work that went into transforming Cleveland into Metropolis, that wasn’t originally part of the plan. Mickle revealed that Gunn and his crew originally hoped to film the city scenes in Atlanta, given that much of the interior scenes were already being filmed there. But once it became clear that Atlanta lacked the variety of architecture necessary to create a convincing Metropolis, they had to cast a slightly wider net.
“Back to the idea that we wanted everything to feel really nostalgic and timeless, we knew we wanted to have a nice architecture that went from everything to the cutting-edge glass skyscraper that Sharon Williams has just put up on the public square to the building that we're using right outside here for the Daily Planet, built turn of the century,” Mickle said. “We were hopeful that we could travel to a different city outside of Atlanta to shoot. We initially scouted Atlanta because that's where we're going to be based for all of our stage shooting, and thought, ‘Okay, can we try to make it work here?’ But they don't have quite as much diversity in the periods of their architecture, so that was a little bit hampering.”
Thus began a period of city-scouting, with everything from Toronto to Detroit being considered. But ultimately, Cleveland emerged as the only logical choice.
“Early on, we thought about Cleveland. We thought about Toronto. We thought about Chicago, Detroit. We just did a little research just poking around visuals in other cities,” Mickle said. “But Cleveland, it definitely had the mix of the architecture. Overall, Ohio definitely has the mix of the architectural periods, so that was always in the back of our heads. But then the thing that really ended up getting this here, initially, was in Cincinnati, the original Hall of Justice is based on the Cincinnati's Union Terminal station.”
Mickle continued, “We found that piece of research and just how perfectly matched it is when it has been shown in the past. So, we thought, ‘Okay, it'd be great if we could shoot that exterior for the exterior of our Hall of Justice.’ So, we came out and scouted it and just started walking around the streets in Cincinnati and know how similar it is to Cleveland. And we just thought, ‘Well, if we're already going to be here for a day to shoot that, why don't we actually do a deeper dive in Ohio?’"
Redesigning the Fortress of Solitude
The Richard Donner Superman films remain the gold standard where the Fortress of Solitude is concerned. At this point, even the comics have adopted that iconic, crystalline look to the Fortress’ Kryptonian architecture. As the various trailers have shown, the Fortress plays a significant role in the film. Mickle said that the goal wasn’t really to reinvent the wheel in this area, but to take the Donner aesthetic and run in a slightly different direction.
“We came up with our own re-imagining based on Richard Donner version where it's, again, a crystal palace and all comes up from the great landscape that we shot in Svalbard,” Mickle said. “But we've reoriented our crystal, so it has a different shape than what you'll see in the Richard Donner version. The exterior has a big monolithic, sculptural, asymmetrical shape that James and I really fell in love with.”
Mickle continued, “It was based on the way water and ocean waves splash and hit rocks and how there's just a nice big movement and projectile action that happens with water. And so the idea is that's how it came up and froze. Crystals grow very much the same way from rocks. They kind of come up projectile, reaching. Everything has movement. So that's very much what we brought into our Fortress of Solitude. That's what the exterior is. And then on the interior, we carry all that, the lines and the movement and the shapes. Those sweeping shapes all come on the inside as well.”
On the flip side, Gunn voiced a desire to have a Fortress that’s as home-y and inviting on the inside as it is cold and imposing on the outside. This is a Fortress of Solitude straight out of the Silver Age comics, with all the tools and gadgets and rooms fans would expect.
“James really wanted it to be a man cave. He wanted it to be very much based on the Silver Age comics."“James really wanted it to be a man cave,” Mickle said. “He wanted it to be very much based on the Silver Age comics. It's where he has his laboratory. It's where he has a zoo. It's where he has a supercomputer set up. It's where he does his research. It's where he hangs out. We brought a lot of that into the design where it feels like it's kind of man cave carved into stone, with crystals coming through it. And a lot of the language for all of the Krypton technology is very Silver Age-inspired and has a little bit of midcentury wink to it.
Mickle added, “That was, by far, the most exciting, as far as the sets of what we got to recreate. And we all know, the whole art department, we're like, ‘We peeked. It doesn't get better.’ All from design, the direction, the recreating, the Fortress of Solitude, that's literally, there's just nowhere to go from here.”
Creating the Kent Farm
Superman also introduces its own take on the Kent family farm, with Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell portraying Clark’s parents. This is one area where Gunn wanted to strike a very different tone from the typically vast, Rockwellian versions of the Kent farm in previous adaptations. This farm is small and humble, perfect for conveying Clark’s humble origins.
“James was really clear that he wanted the Kent farm and the homestead to be a big departure from what we've seen before,” Mickle said. “We didn't want it to be this idyllic two-story farmhouse with a wraparound front porch and gloriously maintained, just magically, wonderfully, hundreds of acres beautifully maintained by two older folks. He wanted it to actually feel like a very modest but very well-loved homestead. And he had said really early on - single level, small, simple, nothing overly adorned.”
Just as with the hunt for Metropolis, finding the right farm to transform into the Kent homestead took some doing, but the crew eventually found what they were looking for in LaGrange, Georgia.
“We found this fantastic location where the old original farmhouse for the homestead was down the road, but then this was this old kind of a caretaker's ranch house that they had put across the road on the property, but it's still surrounded by hundreds of acres of fields just like you'd expect,” Mickle said. “And it just happened to be empty at the time, that house. It had belonged to the father of the family who had passed away a few years before, but the family really wanted to rehab it, get it back into better shape, do something with it. They weren't sure what to do with it.”
Mickle continued, “And then we came along. It's one of those beautiful stories. We went in. We really tidied up. We mitigated any of the issues. We took care of some leaky areas and kept the old shed carpet just because it had that old great timelessness, and then really embraced a lot of what was already there, which was really great.”
Supermans Costume: The Great Trunks Debate
Gunn also had some clear ideas about Superman’s costume coming into the project. As McKovsky revealed, Gunn was very adamant that he wanted the costumes in the film to be functional, not skintight spandex. They needed to look like legitimate uniforms the characters put on when they go to work, and that’s especially true for Superman himself.
“I think the thought behind the costume is to not overthink it,” McKovsky said. “It is not a fake muscle suit. It isn't muscles built into some fake suit. Again making Superman very relatable. It's David. And it is a suit. It is a uniform. He puts it on to go fight. It isn't a magic suit. James was very adamant that it is a uniform that he goes out to fight in. It is clothing.”
That fact is reflected in the textures and materials used for the costume. Corenswet’s costume was sewn from wool, a material chosen after some trial-and-error.
“It is heavy. It is wool,” McKovsky said. “The fabric is a real fabric. We went through many things. It's kind of a printed stretch, but it has some cotton in it. We started more cotton stretch, and it was a little too wrinkly and not fitted. We went through many fabrics.”
McKovsky continued, “It's a very thin stretch that then has a print to give it a texture because James was very adamant it had a texture and not just flat to make it more modern. That always makes it look a little thicker than the fabric actually is. But I mean it has a little structure in the suit, but not muscle. There's no muscles on the suit. It's David.”
One thing Gunn wasn’t so clear on was whether or not Superman’s iconic red trunks should be a part of his uniform. Many recent live-action Superman suits have shied away from the trunks, adopting a more modern, New 52-inspired look. McKovsky told reporters that the debate raged for a long time, saying “It was a large discussion that went on literally till the night before we shot.”
“I do not do social media, but I do know the amount of tension,” McKovsky said. “And it was also a big deal for us whether it was trunks or no trunks. It was a constant poll amongst everybody, ‘Trunks or no trunks?’ And then we would end up no trunk. And getting the trunks to where we all thought they worked and made sense with this costume was a long... We tried many things, many things.”
For her part, McKovsky was firmly in the pro-trunks camp, and she was determined to make the design work.
"Literally, the night before everybody went to Greenland, we looked at it, we shot it, and the minute we saw it, everybody had the same thought.”“I actually have to admit, I would not give up,” McKovsky said. “I'm going to do my best to make sure they work if we want them, because I'll be the first to say, ‘It doesn't work with this suit,’ but I just refused to give up. And literally, the night before everybody went to Greenland, we looked at it, we shot it, and the minute we saw it, everybody had the same thought.”
What convinced them? McKovsky said that the costume ultimately seemed to be missing something crucial without the trunks to provide balance.
“I think it was just the way it's made and that it's the same kind of weight and that it is close to the original Superman design,” McKovsky said. “It just, it didn't look like Superman without the trunks. It just looked like a blue suit, honestly. It was very interesting. And it was very divided among the crew, very divided. But it's something about we took them off on the last night, and then put them back on, and everyone went, ‘Oh, it's just a blue suit with an S on it.’"
As for Corenswet’s Clark Kent look, McKovsky said that the trick was creating a more frazzled, harried look and portraying Clark as someone who dresses a little bit old-fashioned, highlighting the fact that he’s not full in step with our modern, cynical world.
“I mean, Clark is Clark,” McKovsky said. “The one thing, again, he's not very comfortable, so his clothes don't fit very well. He's not a glamorous Clark Kent. He's kind of goofy, frankly. And his clothes, they're a little old-fashioned. They don't fit well because he doesn't fit well. It was a deliberate choice to have it be kind of not, but it is, I will say right out of the comic.”
Clark’s glasses proved to be one of the most important elements. They are, after all, the closest thing he has to a mask, and the challenge was finding just the right style for a bumbling reporter hiding the fact that he’s also an all-powerful superhero.
“We've tried quite a few,” McKovsky said. “We narrowed it down on the first try that we got this pair of glasses. They're sort of vintage, but they're not. They're modern, but they give a sort of '70s vibe. I mean, James, on this movie, the sensibility is it's a modern-day movie. They have cell phones, there's all of that, but it is classic. We probably talked about this, that the sensibility is very '60s, '70s in it, almost a little '30s at times too.”
McKovsky added, “But it's very '60s, '70s, so his glasses have a little bit of a '70s feel, but they're not. They also don't overwhelm his face. I mean, that was a hard thing. You don't want it to be about the glasses. There's a story point here. They have to look like they're natural to him.”
Designing the Other Costumes in Superman
McKovsky had plenty to say about designing the other costumes in the film. Read on for a breaksdown of some of the major characters and how their comic book costumes translated into live-action.
The Engineer
McKovsky: The Engineer was challenging. I've done quite a few of these movies, and I wanted to do something new. So, the material that we make, I have to say, it's pretty beautiful. It's like this weird, reedy thing under a laser cut, so it comes through. At times, you can see where it comes through from your skin. But I think that was a challenge, how to make that actually work, and be a sexy suit, and still do all the things in the movie that it has to do.
It was, again, working with everyone and , "How do we give a leg up to visual effects so they don't have to do everything?" Because James, the more practical, that's what he wants. He wants the least amount. I mean, of course he's added a lot of visual effects. And we rely on Steph [Ceretti] for everything, but we help him, so he doesn't have to do [everything].
It's not like we're just going to put a MoCap suit on everyone, as in other movies. We don't do that. We make a good base so that they can then take it. And all these suits function. They have a function, so we try and help that.
Guy Gardner
McKovsky: Again, it's clothing. I will say, when I talk to James, he thinks of all superheroes as clothing. He doesn't think of it as some glued-on skin-tight [thing]. He never has in all the movies I've done with him. He doesn't see them that way. He sees them, even though they're superheroes or they could be slightly alien, as human. You want to relate to them. And I think he feels like you can relate to characters more if it's more clothing-based, so I think that's how he looked at all those characters, that it's clothing.
We all start looking at the comic, and we look at all the iterations that have been in the comic, and we go, "Yeah, it's great in a comic. It's not going to work." And also, if the character is funny, you don't need to make funny clothes. Let them be funny. Because there is a heroic part of them, for sure.
I think that's kind of... I mean, I do that anyway. Okay, Chris Evans always says that, "You don't put a hat on a hat." So, if it's already one thing, you don't need to push it and make it funnier or make a caricature. That character could so easily go caricature, and we decided to not go that way at all. Just let Nathan be the Green Lantern.
Lois Lane
McKovsky: Lois, in particular, was an interesting journey. She's a real reporter. It's not about fashion. She's an on-the-ground out there reporter, and it's very low-key. Her clothes, they're very functional. It's not a fashion statement, at all. They're very simple clothes. It's someone who would really go out.
I mean, this movie is very grounded. Having done these movies before, the more grounded you make them, the more you can relate to the characters. If they're so out there, then they're just comic. With Lois, particularly, we kept it really low-key for sure.
Hawkgirl
McKovsky: Hawkgirl was really difficult, actually. I think Hawkgirl was probably the hardest thing to do because there's so many iterations of Hawkgirl. She's got so many backstories. It's like, which one works with this movie?
We went with the approach that they're kind of coordinated, It's a team, and sort of a team. But it's nothing like the comic, except she does have a helmet, which is very comic-based. But any of those iterations, also, I just don't think they would have made the best costume for a movie that's reality-based, so we kind of went away from it. But, again, it was a thing, helmet, no helmet, helmet, no helmet. I'm like, "Helmet. I'm making a helmet." And they go, "I don't think we're ever going to use the helmet." "I'm making a helmet."
So, we made the helmet. I thought, "Oh, we're using the helmet." Because it's pretty cool. When you see the silhouette in the sky, then you really know it's Hawkgirl.
Mr. Terrific
McKovsky: I would say Mr. Terrific is the one closest to the comic, for sure. It's such a great image. And he's the one guy, he's so cool that he can have a suit that looks like a little superhero. Everything on him is very branded. He's got Ts on everything because that's who he is.
And I think that is the one, even though we updated a little, he's got these very cool sneaker boots, and that weren't easy to make and get all the lines to match up. That was a little why-did-I-do-that moment, "Why did I have the lines go right down through the boot?" But he's such a hipster cool guy.
Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025.
For more on the new DC film, find out 6 huge details we learned about Superman and brush up on every DC movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
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