It has happened before and it will happen again – the Internet rumor perpetual-motion machine got some stuff wrong about Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. While Snyder doesn’t ascribe to something even remotely like J.J. Abrams’ “Mystery Box” way of hiding information (including the barest of facts) about his films, fans of Superman have been so revved up about the new Henry Cavill-starring film for so long that it’s understandable that a ton of rumors would be cooked up about the film before and during its production. After all, who wouldn’t expect to see Lex Luthor in a Superman film?
In the wake of the film actually being released in theaters, let’s recap eleven big rumors about Man of Steel that got root on the interwebs (either via traditional reportage or speculative message boards) and have now been proven to be patently false. While a few of these have already been debunked, the release of the film finally signals the most formal of debunkings for all of them. Fortunately for fans of Supes, most of these are rumors we definitely didn’t want to see pan out (even if they did take some serious chatter wing for a bit there), at least in a newly rebooted origin story. Of course, there are tons of spoilers ahead for anyone who has yet to see Man of Steel, so beware.
1. Despite tons of rumors as to possible big name casting for Lex Luthor (including Billy Zane, a Kevin Spacey reprise, Dominic Page, Adam Harris, Michael Cerveris, Bradley Cooper, Mackenzie Gray, and Michael C. Hall), none of them were cast in the film. Why? Because Lex Luthor isn’t even in the film. Gray does, however, appear in the film – as Jax-Ur, one of General Zod’s main bad dudes.
2. Another fun casting rumor? That Gina Carano would pop up as Wonder Woman. She doesn’t. Why? Again, because no one pops up as Wonder Woman, because she isn’t even in the film.
This one seems to have cropped up way back in September, thanks so some speculation by Cosmic Booknews that Cavill and Carano hanging out must mean that she was in the film and she must also be playing Wonder Woman. I don’t know, guys, maybe they’re just a real life couple?
3. Lindsay Lohan was also rumored to have a bit part as Cat Grant, sexy gossip columnists and Lois/Clark romance disrupter. Do you see where this is going? We’ve known that Lohan isn’t the film, but is Cat Grant? Nope.
We can thank TMZ for this rumor, who reported it in a piece that also detailed Lohan’s jewelry-pilfering exploits, so perhaps everyone should have stopped reading it when they realized they were reading TMZ for updates on a star’s criminal and professional undertakings.
4. Here’s a cute costuming rumor that’s been flying around for a bit. While Henry Cavill’s suit does do away with the red undies, his costume never consists of T-shirt and jeans with a smaller cape. As cute as a mini cape would be, nope, not the case. Sure, kid Clark Kent wears this get-up for playtime, but it’s never his “costume.” Chalk this one up to probable misinterpretation.
5. A big, bad rumor – that Braniac destroys Krypton – isn’t true on a number of levels. Brainiac doesn’t destroy the planet (more on that later), which is at least partly due to the fact that he also doesn’t appear in the film.
6. There was also a rumor that Zod, Faora, and Jax-Ur initially try to blend into Earth when they first show up, then hate it, then come up with a plan to destroy it and turn it into a new Krypton. We can unequivocally state that the first part of that rumor isn’t true – those three don’t bother to blend in (and how could they? Jax-Ur is about eight feet tall and Zod and Faora are nuts!).
7. The Lex Luthor rumors persisted, with one holding out that Zod wanting to use LexCorp technology for his nefarious plans and having apparent meet and greets with Luthor to chat about it. Listen, that sounds superfun and all, but it just doesn’t happen.
8. Doomsday was rumored to appear in the film. He doesn’t.
This is another rumor that took hold over at Cosmic Booknews, and while it’s not true, their original post still sounds incredibly cool.
9. Blame this one on the Christopher Nolan involvement, but as much as we might want to see Superman and Batman together, no, Batman doesn’t show up in Man of Steel.
10. And, perhaps the biggest potential Superman game-changer of all was, most likely not a rumor, but a misinterpretation of a (perhaps deliberately?) poorly worded sentence. While the stars of the film debunked this one awhile back, it’s the sort of nasty little rumor that takes hold in the hearts and minds of Superman fans who might have to see it (or, well, not see it) to believe it.
In short, Krypton is destroyed in the film. This one got started after EW’s summer preview, which included the line “That’s what pits him against General Zod (Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Shannon), a Kryptonian tyrant who wants Clark to join him back on Krypton, which would mean abandoning his post as defender of the weaklings of Earth.” Over at io9, they took that “back on Krypton” piece quite literally, kickstarting a rumor that Krypton would still exist long after Kal-El was shipped off. Not true. Krypton, as we know it, is toast.
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Big thanks to the DC Movies wiki for Man of Steel rumors for helping us track down some of our favorite potential plot points (for a time, I actually believed I had dreamt that Krypton still existed).
Did we miss any of your favorite rumors? Throw them into the comments!
Related Topics: Amy Adams
