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Zack Snyder wanted to keep Superman’s red trunks, tried 1,500 designs

Zack Snyder advocated to kept the red trunks on Superman's costume in the DCEU, trying over 1,500 designs during production to no avail

Henry Cavill in Man of Steel

The DCEU movie Man of Steel is a divisive subject. Some Superman fans love it, others not so much. A particularly controversial aspect, at least when the action movie came out, was the absence of Superman’s red trunks.

It appeared that director Zack Snyder had the choice to discard the underwear that so often adorned the outside of the last son of Krypton’s blue jumpsuit. Actually, the opposite is true: Snyder wanted to keep the accessory, but no version worked for the film. “I tried like crazy to keep the red briefs on him. Everyone else said, ‘You can’t have the briefs on him’,” he told Digital Spy. “I looked at probably 1,500 versions of the costumes with the briefs on.”

Man of Steel was intended to bring Superman into modern day, and Snyder admitted that at some point you just have to give yourself over to creative risks that may or may not work. “You come onto a project like this, and you hear about modernisation and you hear about bringing things forward to today,” he stated. “All you can do is hope that it’s going to look cool and different from anything you’ve seen before.”

Henry Cavill donned the cape in the adventure movie, and the sequels Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. This whole iteration of DC on the big screen has fans split down the middle, some hating it, some loving it.

What we can all agree on (we hope) is that the red trunks do help with the aesthetic of Superman’s suit. The red breaks up all the blue, and maintains that iconic look that’s held fast for decades upon decades. You may not love everything Snyder’s done, but he was on the right track with this one.

For what’s coming in the DCEU, check out our guides to Aquaman 2 and Black Adam.