Liberty Place makes a cameo in ‘Superman’ ‘as a little nod’ to David Corenswet
Clark Kent may call Delaware home in the new movie, but the Philly-born lead actor gets to show home hometown love too.
Superman fans in Delaware have something to celebrate — Clark Kent now calls the First State home.
This week, writer/director James Gunn confirmed that his reboot of the legendary DC Comics superhero franchise places the fictional city of Metropolis, where Superman/Kent lives, in Delaware. The new movie hits theaters today.
“Metropolis has actually been in different places,” said Gunn in an interview with Screen Rant. “But it’s been in Delaware before, so I didn’t just make up Delaware. I knew [Metropolis] was just sort of an East Coast city.” (Gotham, considered a sister city, is set in New Jersey.)
It’s just one of the movie’s ties to this region.
David Corenswet, who plays the superhero, was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Montgomery County. He attended Bryn Mawr’s Shipley School and began acting on local stages at Upper Darby Summer Stage, People’s Light, and Arden Theatre. He started college at the University of Pennsylvania before transferring to Juilliard.
Philly native Bradley Cooper also makes a cameo as Superman’s biological dad from Krypton.
But that’s still not all that’s Philly about Superman.
Corenswet recently shared that there’s a small Easter egg in the movie’s final cut that some viewers might miss: A shout out to his hometown.
“The skyline of Metropolis, as seen from Lex’s control room includes Liberty Place from Philadelphia,” Corenswet said in his Screen Rant interview. “I think they put that building in as a little nod for me.”
While certainly a sweet detail to feature for Corenswet — and any local Superman fans — placing Liberty Place in Metropolis might confuse viewers who remember that even in this fictional universe, the city of Philadelphia does exist.
It was the central location for the 2019 movie Shazam! directed by David Sandberg.
Where does Liberty Place go from here?