While Charlie Cox is best-known for playing Matt Murdock on Netflix's Daredevil, it turns out the star was once tapped to portray Superman in a pre-Henry Cavill movie that never happened.
Kingsman creator Mark Millar explained to The Aspiring Kryptonian how Kick-Ass' Matthew Vaughn saw Cox as his Man of Steel. "[Matthew] and I had a lot of chats about who could play Superman. We never really talked about story," Millar revealed. "Weirdly, his idea was really interesting, which was Charlie Cox, the guy who played Daredevil. And Matthew had just worked with Charlie on Stardust a year or two before. And there's something just really likable about him. He said, 'I know he’s not big and Superman’s always big' -- like Charlie's maybe 5'8 or 5'9 or something. He says, 'He looks a lot like the Golden Age version of Superman, you know when he was a bit more like a regular person.'"
Zack Snyder kick-started the DC Extended Universe with 2013's Man of Steel and cast Cavill as the movie's lead. However, somewhere in the complicated history of Superman movies that never happened, Millar intended to team up with Vaughn for their own version of the Metropolis Marvel.
Although Millar claimed Vaughn's idea never went past the casting stage, he said, "If he had done it, I think it would have been interesting." This isn't the first time news of Vaughn's Superman movie has done the rounds. Back in 2017, the director described his idea as a modern update of the Richard Donner movies that were led by Christopher Reeve. As well as the story mostly taking place on Krypton, Vaughn said Kal-El would be torn between his allegiance to his home planet and Earth.
Following Warner Bros.' disappointment with Superman Returns' worldwide box office in 2006, the studio once again wanted to reboot and start from scratch. With Brandon Routh out as Superman, there were plans for D.J. Cotrona to suit up for George Miller's Justice League: Mortal and someone else to play Superman in a separate continuity standalone film. In June 2008, Warner Bros. took pitches from writers about a new take on Superman, with David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan also making a pitch after the success of The Dark Knight.
Ultimately, Vaughn and Miller's Superman joins the long list of canned projects fans will never get to see, sitting alongside Vaughn's later plans for Man of Steel 2. However, with Henry Cavill playing coy about his potential turn as Superman, there could still be room for Cox to swap Marvel for DC. After all, he thinks he's done playing the Man Without Fear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.