There’s one area where I feel like Gunn needs to really tap into on his Superman movie and, in my mind, that’s making it feel like an event and also really driving home it’s crossover potential with non-superhero movie fans. Which is a lot harder to do when you’re creating a new universe/franchise while also developing a superhero property in a post-MCU world. But in all his interviews, he keeps driving home how much he loved the Reeve/Donner film and how great it was and I think he really needs to take his time and evaluate exactly why that was.
Because Reeve Superman is transcendental, in my mind. It’s not just one of the greatest superhero movies of all time, it’s one of the greatest movies. It’s one of the last true blue Hollywood epics and it’s left an indelible mark on pop culture. I could put a Reeve Superman statue next to Keaton Batman and Carter Wonder Woman and with all kinds of other DC and Marvel Superheroes across the board…but I could also just as easily put him on a shelf with Brandi’s Godfather, Indiana Jones, Dirty Harry, Darth Vader, and Rick Blaine without so much as raising an eyebrow.
It wasn’t just comic book fans that went to see that movie, it was everybody and their Grandma. Literally. Whole families went, and Warner and the Salkind’s delivered something with an incredible pedigree. You had **** Donner in the director’s chair working from a script by The Godfather’s Mario Puzo, you had two of the biggest stars in the world at the time, Brando and Hackman, supporting and opposing Reeve in what was really his breakthrough role and it was just…magic. I don’t give a damn about making things “new and fresh.” Sometimes, I feel like the only surefire way to do that is to go backwards. I don’t need skintight, chiseled muscle suits with overdesigned alien fabrics because that’s not anything new, anyway. That just lets Superman get lost amidst the muddled plethora of comic book flicks as they already exist today. And while I absolutely see the value in putting CG into a giant fight sequence between super beings, I feel like restraint is the name of the game. I would say the impact when kids in 1978 got to see Reeve fly across their screens for the first time with that ****-eating grin infinitely surpassed watching a featureless, baby smooth avatar of Henry Cavill create a CGI sonic boom behind him as he lifted off into the digital sky.
You take something like Jurassic Park and compare it to Jurassic World and there’s a certain magic at watching something real and practical and physical lurch across your screen vs. something that could just as well be found in any AAA video game. To my mind, there’s a visual aesthetic to Superman that needs to be honored as much as any character or physical traits and that is Americana. I feel like every image of Superman and every image of Smallville should feel like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. People might say it’s antiquated and they might say it’s out of touch with the modern world, but I would argue that it should be because that’s what Superman would be.
Snyder once got pissy in an interview and said “you’re living in a ****ing dream world if you think your heroes don’t kill people or embezzle from their companies” and I would say that interview exemplifies why he was the wrong choice for Superman. I feel like, when I look at Superman, I should look at him the same way I do a 90-year old World War II vet in a PBS documentary or at the end of Band of Brothers. There’s a sort of understanding that the past and the present are rife with moral conflict and ugliness, but, no matter the external circumstances, certain people, certain human experiences, and certain beliefs are unsullied by it. And that, for me, is Superman.