Report: Brainiac Will Be the Big Bad in ‘Man of Tomorrow’

James Gunn’s Superman has kickstarted the new DC movie universe in earnest, and now its follow-up, Man of Tomorrow, is ready to bring in the big guns: a new report suggests that Superman and Lex Luthor will team up in the 2027 movie to battle one of DC Comics’ most famous superfoes.

The Wrap reports that Brainiac will be the major threat that forces Lex Luthor (who, after his imprisonment in Superman‘s climax, finds himself in much more gracious confinement when he teams up with Rick Flag, Sr.) and Superman to put aside their animosities in the new movie. Introduced in the comics during the Silver Age in 1958’s Action Comics #242, Brainiac is a Coluan, a hyperintelligent, green-skinned alien race capable of living for centuries, who was first introduced as a curious collector, utilizing advanced technology to shrink down and capture whole cities for his research and collection—including the capital of Krypton itself, Kandor, before the planet was destroyed.

Although Brainiac has been extensively reworked over the years since his introduction as a techno-organic, mentally advanced despot, he has been a mainstay of Superman comics and other adaptations but has yet to have a major appearance in live-action DC films.

io9 has reached out to DC Studios for comment on the Wrap’s report and will update this post when or if we hear back.

It’s perhaps not too surprising that Gunn is purportedly shaping Brainiac as a new major villain for the still-nascent DCU. The director and DC Studios co-runner recently pondered that Darkseid, who had played a major role in the DC cinematic universe previously envisioned by Zack Snyder, was not something he was interested in revisiting yet, leaving plenty of room for other major threats (like Brainiac) to emerge in future movies. Furthermore, fans speculated that Brainiac could be Man of Tomorrow‘s villain after Gunn shared the front page of the movie’s screenplay on social media back in September, featuring an anatomical cross-section of a human head… of course, featuring a prominent image of the brain:

😈ðŸ¤ðŸ˜‡Â #MoT 7.9.27 pic.twitter.com/aIKSFpaHff

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) September 22, 2025

Man of Tomorrow is currently expected to enter production in spring next year, ahead of a planned release on July 9, 2027.

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