Edi Gathegi Reveals He Sealed Multi-Project DC Deal as Mister Terrific

Edi Gathegi first found out about Mister Terrific through James Gunn’s social media. When Gunn became co-chief of DC Studios in 2023, one of his first posts was a picture of Mister Terrific, a lesser-known DC character whose real name is Michael Holt. This sparked a lot of guesses online about who might play him.

Gathegi was one of the first actors suggested. He said, “So my thought was, ‘Let me look him up.’” After reading about the character, he was impressed. “Fourteen PhDs, polyglot, polymath, auto-didactic, natural aptitude for natural aptitudes, Olympic athlete — all of these characteristics,” he said, smiling as he described the character.

But he also noticed the darker side: Mister Terrific lost his wife and almost gave up on life before being visited by The Spectre, who told him about the previous Mister Terrific and inspired him to take up the mantle. Gathegi added, “I thought, this is a character who’s equal parts d’Artagnan and Sherlock Holmes.”

Despite this, the next day the casting rumors shifted to more familiar names like John Boyega, Daniel Kaluuya, and Michael B. Jordan. Gathegi said, “I just let it go and forgot about it.”

Gathegi already had experience in superhero movies. In 2011, he played Darwin in “X-Men: First Class.” Darwin could change his body to survive any situation, but his character was killed off early, and he was the only significant man of color in the film.

When James Gunn cast Gathegi as Mister Terrific, the actor was thrilled to learn that this role was much bigger than before. In the new “Superman” movie, Mister Terrific is part of the Justice Gang, along with Guy Gardner (played by Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced).

The story shows Mister Terrific helping Lois Lane find Superman after Lex Luthor traps him in a secret prison. Gathegi’s character even has a cool action scene where he uses his high-tech T-Spheres to fight Lex’s henchmen on a beach, with Lois watching in surprise.

Mister Terrific also appears in the movie’s end credits scene, which Gathegi only found out about on the premiere night. In an interview with Variety, he shared why that moment meant a lot to him. He also talked about his thoughts on Mister Terrific’s T-shaped mask, training for the big fight, and what lies ahead for his character in the new DC Universe.

The movie doesn’t dive into Mister Terrific’s sad backstory. When asked if there was more footage about it, Gathegi said no. “This is the beginning of the new DC Universe, and the focal point is Superman. There wasn’t a lot of room to delve into Mister Terrific’s backstory. If we’re lucky, we’re going to have a lot more opportunities to dig into what Mister Terrific is and who he is. I feel like we’ve only scratched the surface.”

Gathegi confirmed he has a multi-project deal with DC but doesn’t know the details yet. He said, “James is driving home the idea that they’re never going to rush into production with scripts that aren’t ready, so even whatever they do have planned for my characters is irrelevant until the draft comes in and it’s shootable. So I don’t count my chickens before they hatch. I want to be involved in this universe in a major way, and whether or not that comes to fruition is just a matter of time and faith and other people’s hard work.”

When asked if he would join Nathan Fillion in the upcoming HBO Max show “Lanterns,” Gathegi said, “Oh, no, I can tell you that I’m not.”

Someone close to the project mentioned that James Gunn is thinking about making TV spinoffs for characters from the movie. Mister Terrific and Jimmy Olsen (played by Skyler Gisondo) are two names being talked about, but nothing is confirmed yet. This shows that Gunn wants to explore the DC world beyond just the biggest heroes.

Writer Al Letson, who created a Mister Terrific TV pilot before Gunn announced the character for the movie, shared some insight. He said, “This was before James Gunn putting him [Mr. Terrific] in Superman. I thought, you know, people know him but they don’t KNOW him. And I could take him and do something with it.”

Letson wrote the pilot as a writing sample to show he could write grounded superhero stories, but the writers’ strike stopped him from pitching it. Instead, his story turned into a comic book series called Mister Terrific: Year One, which DC approved. Letson said the comic had to be changed a bit, but the core story stayed the same.

After Gunn posted the image of Mister Terrific from the movie, Letson reconnected with DC to pitch an official origin story for the comic. While a Mister Terrific show is only a rumor now, it seems more possible as Gunn keeps building the character in the DC Universe.

All this is part of a bigger plan to fix DC’s messy history. For years, different parts of Warner Bros. worked on DC projects separately, and movies, shows, animation, and merchandise didn’t connect. Now James Gunn and Peter Safran are in charge of everything. They stopped many old projects and started fresh.

Gunn said clearly when he took the job: “The history of DC is pretty messed up. No one was minding the mint.”

The goal is to create a connected world where all stories link together. That includes superhero movies, horror spin-offs, animated shows, and maybe even series about side characters like Jimmy Olsen. It’s a big task, but Warner Bros. trusts Gunn to finally make DC work.

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