The director James Gunn reboots the DC Universe with "Superman," and smartly skips the character's over-told origin story.

The new film, starring David Corenswet as Superman, is intended to kick off a new epoch for DC Studios, which has struggled in recent years to produce consistent superhero hits.

The David Corenswet-led film is both a reboot and the big-screen introduction to a new DC Universe that will unfold in the coming years across movies and television. While Superman isn’t technically the first official new DCU project —that honor belongs to last winter’s Creature Commandos—the new film is Gunn’s first broad-stroke,