James Gunn’s Superman reboot is currently the number one movie at the box office, earning a whopping $220 million. But is it possible that it would have made even more had it contained a bunch of filthy jokes?
Prior to the movie’s release, rumors surfaced online that 2025’s Superman was working blue, with stories about scenes containing “risqué” humor and a “plethora of sex jokes,” all of which allegedly ended up on the cutting room floor after test screenings yielded “mixed reactions.”
There were also reports that the film underwent a “slight course correction” that included removing an editor and bringing in a new composer. Although presumably the new composer didn’t add in any blaring horn parts to drown out dirty words.
Don’t Miss
Some speculated the more X-rated gags were focused on the character of Jimmy Olsen. Instead of having someone shoot Jimmy in the face five minutes into the story like some other Superman movies, the Man of Steel’s “best friend” has a fairly prominent role in the new film. But unlike other iterations of the character, this Jimmy Olsen is irresistible to women and seemingly exhausted by his own sexual dynamism. Meanwhile, fans on Reddit theorized that the jokes could have been told by the tone-deaf Green Lantern character, Guy Gardner. It’s also possible that they delved more into the concept of Superman’s “harem.”
To be clear, there’s no evidence that any of this is true — and thus no need to start a #ReleaseTheSexJokeCut campaign, although the same social media source was seemingly correct about the “mutant monkey keyboard warrior” subplot, which probably sounded like bullshit at the time.
And to be honest, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that was at one point an element of the movie considering that Gunn obviously has a long history of crude humor. Even in addition to his controversial tweets, this is the guy who wrote Tromeo and Juliet we’re talking about.
Superman wouldn’t have even been the first major studio movie to include more mature jokes about the DC universe, lest we forget that Mallrats included a prolonged scene about Kryptonite condoms three decades ago. Incidentally, director Kevin Smith later revealed that this joke was inspired by an actual Superman comic set in an alternate future in which Clark Kent impregnates Lois Lane and the baby’s super-strength ends up killing her.
Come to think of it, no joke about Jimmy Olsen’s sexcapades would be nearly as problematic as Superman using his X-ray vision to straight-up creep on Lois Lane and then brag about it, which literally happened in the 1978 Christopher Reeve-starring classic.
