Matthew Lillard lands blockbuster role after crediting 'nostalgia' for career comeback

Matthew Lillard has landed a blockbuster new role in Superman: Man of Tomorrow.

The Scream star, 56, will reportedly be heading back to the big screen in the sequel to James Gunn's 2025 reboot Superman - which features David Corenswet as the Man of Steel - after previously putting his career comeback down to "nostalgia".

Deadline.com reports Lillard has joined the cast of Superman: Man of Tomorrow, which also stars Nicholas Hoult, Lars Eidinger, Rachel Brosnahan, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Isabela Merced and Nathon Fillion, but no details have been given about the role he will play.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow has gone into production ahead of a planned release on July 9, 2027.

Lillard rose to fame as Stu Macher in 1996's Scream before playing Shaggy in 2002's Scooby-Doo and its sequel Monsters Unleashed two years later, while he has found a new fanbase since playing William Afton in Five Nights At Freddy's in 2023, going onto appear in The Life of Chuck and Daredevil: Born Again.

Speaking to the Phase Hero podcast, Lillard admitted he believes a new wave of fan nostalgia has given him a career reboot. He said: "Scooby-Doo 1 and 2 are more popular now than they ever were when they came out.

"So I do think there’s a weird nostalgia thing happening in our industry and in the zeitgeist because I think that people are longing for ye olde times.

"I think that’s one of the reasons I’m having this moment to be honest, is because I was identified in that moment, so people are hiring me again."

He argued that movie fans "miss the old times" rather than him as an actor, adding: "I think that’s why I’m working. I don’t think anyone really likes me. They just miss the old times."

Back in 2024, Lillard admitted he thought the Scooby-Doo live action movies would land him "on the call sheet for the next 10 years of movies", but the sequel's box office flop meant "the exact opposite happened".

He told Business Insider: "I’ve gone through good patches and bad patches. I’ve been irrelevant and thought I was never going to work again."

Lillard recently thanked fans for their support after he was criticized by director Quentin Tarantino, who listed the actor among the stars he doesn't "care for" during an appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast.

The film world rallied behind Lillard, who compared the fallout to dying and being "in heaven watching everyone send out their RIP tweets".

He told PEOPLE magazine: "I mean, it was really being a part of your own wake, sort of sitting there living through all the nice things people say after you die.

"So it was really, really lovely. It was something that happened that was, who cares, really? "But I spoke out. I mean, I got caught on a hot mic talking about it, and then it sort of went viral from there."