James Gunn says “Superman: Legacy” dropped Bassem Youssef role before his Israel-Hamas comments
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"[Bassem] and I talked and we're good," the filmmaker clarified.
Filmmaker and DCU chief James Gunn is looking to clear the air after comedian Bassem Youssef said he thought he lost a role in Superman: Legacy due to comments he made about the Israel-Hamas war.
In social media posts Friday, Gunn publicly endorsed an IGN article reporting that Youssef's potential role as dictator Rumaan Harjavti was written out of the upcoming superhero movie before Youssef went viral with a Piers Morgan interview in October. The article also said that while Youssef had been in talks, he was never actually offered the role. "This is accurate," Gunn wrote alongside a link to the article.
In a subsequent post, Gunn said he and Youssef were now on the same page. "There isn't one word against another," he wrote. "[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."
Gilbert Flores/Getty Images; Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
James Gunn and Bassem YoussefEW has reached out to representatives for Youssef and DC Studios for further comment.
In an interview with Salon published Thursday, Youssef indicated that his Piers Morgan Uncensored interview, in which he criticized Israel and spoke out in support of Palestine, cost him the role Superman: Legacy. "I was a little bit bitter about losing the role, and I was kind of very sad… In the United States of America, you can talk about Joe Biden, you can talk about Donald Trump, but you cannot criticize a foreign government, which is kind of, like, very sad, you know?" he said. "And then because of that, I was cast in the movie Superman, and then they told me, 'We changed the script,' after this Piers Morgan interview, and I want to assume good faith."
Speaking to Morgan, Youssef had called out hypocrisy in Western media. "They said Israel is the only military force in the world that warns civilians before bombing them," he said. "How f---ing cute! That is so nice of them because with this logic, if Russian troops started warning Ukrainians before bombing their houses, we're cool with Putin, right?"
Milly Alcock, who was recently cast as Supergirl in the DCU, has also been a vocal advocate for Palestinian liberation, and her position on the conflict does not seem to have affected her tenure with DC Studios. AussieTheatre.com reported in December that Alcock signed a letter calling artists to wear "traditional Palestinian scarves" in solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Meanwhile, fans have observed that Skyler Gisondo, who is set to play Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen in Legacy, has liked numerous Zionist posts on social media.
Superman: Legacy is set to kick off the new DCU on July 11, 2025.
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