In a recent interview, director James Gunn explains the somewhat controversial change to Kal-El’s parents motivations in Superman. Now, this is getting into SPOILER territory for a film that only just came out folks. Therefore, I would suggest watching this happen within the context of the movie before reading it here.
SPOILERS Below
That’s your warning, from here on in I’ll assume you’ve seen it are don’t care about spoilers.
In the film, there’s a theme presented of Superman being soothed by the messages he receives from his Kryptonian biological parents. The end of the message, destroyed in transport he’s never heard, but he has imagined what it says.
However, The Engineer discovers she can actually fix the damage and hear the true end of their message. What is said is then used by Luthor to turn the world against Superman. In that message Jor-El encourages Kal-El to remove any obstacles in his path to rule Earth, calling Humans pathetic. His mother then tells him to impregnate as many women as possible to build a new Kryptonian Empire with him at the rule. The header image above is a moment in the film just after this information is made public. It’s also the first time Superman hears the full message himself.
The point of course is that this is not who Kal-El is, because he was raised by Humans. He utterly rejects the message, but it still gets used against him.
Speaking with IGN Gunn said,
“I’m a huge Superman fan, so first of all I had to trust myself that I was going to honor the pieces of Superman that we needed to keep the same. And also allow myself to make changes where changes might work and wouldn’t go against the integrity of who the character is.”
“So I think that was, simply dealing with, allowing ourselves to change part of the story in a way that was interesting for the DCU, but that wasn’t [something] that went against who Superman was. And has been something that’s been played with in the comics before.”
RELATED: Another Superman Review – Fun With Great Worldbuilding But Needed Room To Breathe
James Gunn explains why he changed [SPOILER] for Superman's birth parents! #Superman pic.twitter.com/T4zIwnkTIV
— IGN (@IGN) July 14, 2025
I have no major issue with the change. As Gunn says, the idea that the Kryptonians aren’t completely altruistic has been explored in the comics. It may prove an interesting change down the line, within Supergirl and beyond. Especially if we ever get to something like Zod happening in the DCU. You could then have Zod as a genuine friend of Jor-El, looking to aid Kal-El’s rule of Earth and being disappointed in what he finds.
Ultimately it changes nothing about who Superman is. Nurture is always a far bigger impact on a persons development than nature.
What do you think of his comments as director James Gunn explains the change to Kal-El’s parents motivations in Superman? Thoughts below.
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