Bassem Youssef and James Gunn Address the Superman: Legacy ‘Fiasco’

Photo: Illustration: Vulture. Photos: Getty Images

Bassem Youssef and James Gunn have cleared up any Superman: Legacy casting beef rumors. Earlier this week, Youssef told Salon that he speculated he was not offered the role of dictator Rumaan Harjavti due to his comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict with Piers Morgan in October. However, on Friday, Gunn clarified what had actually happened by reposting an IGN article stating that the decision to remove Harjavti from the script was made before his Piers Morgan interview. Gunn wrote on Threads, “This is accurate.” The Superman director followed up with another post, writing, “There isn’t one word against another. [Bassem] and I talked and we’re good. I understand how he thought things might be (which he was clear about in his interview), and I told him the whole story.”

On Saturday morning, Youssef responded, clearing the air of the “fiasco” further. He explains on Instagram that he was originally hopeful of landing a role in the film because he submitted his audition, and an hour later, Gunn asked him for a Zoom call to talk about the role further. Fast forward to after the Piers Morgan interview, he gets word from Warner Brothers that the character has been rewritten out of the script. “You can see that from my point of view, the timing was bad,” he says. “A lot of people have lost roles due to their political stance.” After this week’s interview came out, Gunn called Youssef to explain that he had never formally offered the role because they hadn’t gone through camera tests. He then told Gunn what it felt like from his end and Gunn agreed.