British actor Henry Cavill cast in Superman movie

British actor Henry Cavill, will finally get to don Superman's cape in the new Man of Steel movie, its distributor said.

Cavill, 27, will play the dual roles of mild-mannered newspaperman Clark Kent and his high-flying alter ego in the film, which Warner Bros. will release in December 2012. Its formal title has not been announced yet.

Zack Snyder ("300") will direct from a script written by David S. Goyer and based on a story that Goyer developed with "Inception" director Christopher Nolan, who will serve as a producer.

Cavill is perhaps best known for his role as Charles Brandon, the brother-in-law of Henry VIII, in the royal drama "The Tudors." He was a main contender for "Superman Returns" when Joseph "McG" Nichol was attached as director. But when McG exited the project in 2004 and Bryan Singer signed on, Brandon Routh was subsequently cast.

Singer's film, released in 2006, grossed about $391 million at the worldwide box office, a disappointment given its reported $215 million cost. An executive at Warner Bros. later said the film "didn't quite work ... in the way that we wanted it to."

Cavill, born in the Channel Islands, is the latest actor with British ties to take on the role of an iconic American superhero. Andrew Garfield, born in Los Angeles but raised in England, was last year cast as the lead in a reboot of the "Spider-Man" franchise, which is due out in July 2012.

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