Director James Gunn says Bassem Youssef’s DC role was cut before his comments on Israel

FROM DUBAI: Filmmaker and the head of DC Studios James Gunn has set the record straight after US Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef said he thought he lost a role in “Superman: Legacy” due to comments he made about the Israel-Gaza war. 

Gunn reshared 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. “This is accurate,” he captioned the post. 

This is accurate, James Gunn (@JamesGunn) February 16, 2024 In a later post, Gunn said he had explained the situation to Youssef. “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.” 

In an interview with Salon published on Thursday, Youssef said that his “Piers Morgan Uncensored” interview, in which he criticized Israel, cost him the role: “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? “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,” he added. “Superman: Legacy” is set to launch the new DC Universe on July 11, 2025.