It’s no secret that Henry Cavill is back as Superman, not just in a small appearance in Black Adam, but will keep flying as the Man of Steel in new DC projects going forwards. Getting Cavill back as Big Blue was definitely a challenge as Black Adam star and producer Dwayne Johnson said he kept getting “no” over the years from the former head of DC Films Walter Hamada.

“We fought for years to bring you back,” Johnson said in an Instagram post about bringing Cavill back as Superman. “They always said no. But for [producers] Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, and myself ‘no’ was never an option. We can’t intelligently and strategically build out our DC Universe without the greatest superhero of all time. Because for us, the fans will always come first.”

Johnson reportedly went over Hamada’s head, according to Forbes, getting the approval from Warner Bros. executives. It looks like the power hierarchy in DC is really about to change. The scene was apparently filmed in September 2022, just weeks before the movie was to premiere.

Cavill finally revealed how they shot his scene, as there’s also a version of him appearing headless just in case they couldn’t make it work, and how it was super secret on a closed set. He thanked the Garcias and Johnson for making it happen as they had been working hard at it.

“It’s one of those things which we shot in secret in the U.K., and everyone amazingly kept quiet about it,” Cavill revealed on Friday’s Live With Kelly & Ryan, (via Entertainment Weekly). “We were at a studio, so it was all locked down. No one gets in.”

He continued with the fact that it took years for this to happen and was ready to go when it finally happened. “Over many years of conversation, it got to a point where they said, ‘Right, okay, we are green-lit for this,’ So I slipped into the suit and came to work.”

This was Cavill’s first time back as Superman in five years after the Justice League movie failed to meet studio expectations and the years of controversy surrounding the production of the film that led to the eventual release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which was met with similar results.

Black Adam is in theaters now.