Man of Tomorrow: Lars Eidinger Officially Joins The Cast As Brainiac
· BCPosted in: Max, Movies, Superman, TV, Warner Bros | Tagged: man of tomorrow
Man of Tomorrow: Lars Eidinger Officially Joins The Cast As Brainiac
According to director James Gunn, Lars Eidinger has officially joined the cast of Man of Tomorrow as the villain Brainiac.
Published Sat, 20 Dec 2025 19:42:03 -0600
by Kaitlyn Booth
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Article Summary
- Lars Eidinger has been cast as Brainiac in James Gunn's upcoming Superman film, Man of Tomorrow.
- James Gunn confirmed Eidinger's casting and Brainiac's role via his social media accounts.
- Brainiac, a key Superman villain since 1958, will appear in the third film in Gunn's Superman Saga.
- Man of Tomorrow is set for release on July 9, 2027, with returning stars Corenswet and Hoult.
For a little while there, James Gunn was being a bit coy about whether or not Brainiac was the villain of the upcoming Man of Tomorrow, but it seems we're beyond that. The third film in the Superman Saga will be here before we know, and the casting has already started rolling out. While we have confirmed all the returning players, Gunn has also confirmed a new cast member and that Brainiac will be in the film. On his social media accounts, Gunn posted, "In our worldwide search for Brainiac in Man of Tomorrow, Lars Eidinger rose to the top. Welcome to the DCU, Lars." Eidinger is a name that probably won't be familiar to audiences in the US, but the actor has been working in Germany, specifically in theater, since 1997. He had some television roles in the early 2000s and his first film role in 2005. He's been working consistently since then and has appeared in films that US audiences would be familiar with, like Personal Shopper (2016), Dumbo (2019), White Noise (2022), and Jay Kelly (2025). He also had roles on two major Netflix series, Sense8 and All the Light We Cannot See, released in 2017 and 2023, respectively.
Man of Tomorrow , bringing in Brainiac as the villain, has been one of those open secrets since Gunn shared the picture of the script cover with the image of a human head on it. Brainiac is one of those DC characters that has been reimagined and revamped many times, so trying to predict which version will appear in this film is likely to be hard to do. The character was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino and first appeared in Action Comics #242 in July 1958. So the character has been around since the Silver Age and has been used pretty consistently since then.
In the announcement, Gunn used a piece of art from Superman: Secret Files and Origins, which was published in October 2009, and the art is by Francis Manapul. However, it's unclear whether that has any relevance to the general direction we can expect the Man of Tomorrow to take or if Gunn simply thought the art was the best to pair with the announcement.
Man of Tomorrow: A Superman Sequel Arriving At Super Speed
At the beginning of August, word officially came down that James Gunn was set to write and direct the next Super-Family film, and everyone was surprised that things seemed to be moving along so quickly. It appeared that things were even further along than we thought because a month later, the title, Man of Tomorrow, and the release date of July 9, 2027, were announced. The announcement came with three pieces of art by Jim Lee, Jorge Jimenez, and Mitch Gerads shared on Gunn, David Corenswet, and Nicolas Hoult's social media, respectively.
When the images first dropped, the first thing people noticed was Lex in the powersuit. The suit is something that has come and gone from the DC universe as the years go by. When Lex began to make the switch to the evil billionaire businessman trope, and comics wanted to be taken seriously, it got used less. The suit first appeared in Action Comics #544 in June 1983, but when the character switch for Lex happened in 1989, heading into the infamous era of 90s comics, a green powersuit didn't fit into the aesthetic of the era or the version of Lex being written.
As for the title, Man of Tomorrow, it's usually a moniker used to describe Superman as a character, so that specific wording has been used many times. The most well known series of comics with that name ran from 1995-1999 so trying to link that title to a specific storyline is nearly impossible. A 2020 animated movie also had the "man of tomorrow" description as a subtle. Before they shortened the name, Supergirl was Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. That is the next movie in the Superman Saga and will be released in theaters on June 26, 2026.
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