Renewing the heroic Superman of America
George Reeves as the heroic Superman as envisioned
in the 1950s television show, emulated later by Richard
Donner in his 1978 movie. Click for show’s opening credits.
Not surprisingly, the newest Hollywood attempt to tell the story of Superman appears by all accounts to be on the verge of another movie disaster, for all the usual reasons. Though the first weekend receipts were acceptable, a closer look suggests they also have feet of clay. When compared with the 2013 attempt to reboot the 1978 classic Richard Donner film, the numbers do not look that good.
Now, look at the number of tickets sold:
Estimated tickets sold opening weekend:
MAN OF STEEL (14.3M)
SUPERMAN (10.7M)Sometimes a win isn’t quite a win.
The article also notes that the movie is having problems attracting foreign audiences.
The reviews meanwhile have been horrible. Take for example this review:
I’ve seen a lot of superhero movies, and this one — given the level of investment involved, the promotional push, the iconic nature of the character and the importance to the future of DC and Warner Bros. — is by far the worst. I would have left the theater if I hadn’t gone with a friend. There are minor Marvel entries with more to their credit than this. It doesn’t even manage to be fun.
Why should this new movie about the first true American super-hero standing for “truth, justice, and the American way” be having problems at box office? Isn’t the story exactly the kind of thing audiences love and normally consume with eager anticipation?
The problem is that this modern Superman movie is not about “truth, justice, and the American way.” Instead, the film’s director and producer, James Gunn, decided it should instead be about “truth, justice, and the human way,” a statement that is not only meaningless and carrying far less substance, it is a slap in the face of the very noble American ideals of this very American legend.
The phrase was seen on official Superman movie merchandise. … Gunn has previously said that he has to approve all the toys associated with the movie, per Cosmic Book News. The figure of Superman comes with text that reads, “Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice, and the human way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.”
Nor is this a guess. Gunn made it clear in interviews that he had re-conceived the story of Superman from that of a hero to that of “An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country.” Or as this reviewer notes,
In Gunn’s retelling, Superman was sent from Krypton not to be an ideal to strive toward, but to dominate the Earth, to rule over its people, and to procreate to restore the genetic line of his elite alien family bloodline.
…What is clear is that Gunn has no more respect for Ma and Pa Kent than he does for Jor-El. Rather than being strong upstanding moral avatars of American pride and grounded purpose — Hank Hills of the Midwest — the Kents are transformed into ignorant schlubs, whose primary message to Clark in a moment of personal crisis is to just be himself, even if that means being a weakling.
Instead of having Superman stand for the fundamental American values of faith, family, and moral commitment, Gunn apparently wants Superman to instead represent the values of the illegal immigrants that poured into America during the Biden administration.
Talk about cheapening a legend to score political points. It furthermore makes no sense, since Superman was raised entirely in America, in fly-over country no less, and thus is actually the equivalent of a second generation American, not an immigrant. He might have come here “illegally,” that is so beside the point that is entirely laughable.
No wonder audiences appear unenthused about the movie. Do not be surprised if the box office numbers drop like a rock in the coming weeks.
If you want to see a truly great movie about Superman, then you need to buy or stream the 1978 Richard Donner film, because in that classic Donner distilled in every way all the components of the legend, with an eye to its moral foundation in American culture and an unwavering commitment to produce a movie that is fun to watch. This one scene, where Lois Lane interview Superman for the first time, is a great example.
Superman stands unapologetically for “truth, justice, and the American way.” More importantly, he “never lies.” And in case you do not understand what “the American way”, means, I defined it at length in 2020:
To put it more plainly, the American Way aims at building a just and truthful society in which to raise children. No matter what happened, the security, freedom, and prosperity of the next generation — the future — took paramount. It was for this reason my generation, the sixties Baby Boom generation, was raised with more wealth and prosperity and freedom than any generation ever in the entire history of the human race. At the moment of our birth following World War II the American nation was at a pinnacle of success, resulting from a hundred and fifty years of passionate effort by generations of free Americans toiling as families to build a better place for their children. You made your marriage work because to subject your children to the agony of divorce — for something those children had nothing to do with — was not only unjust and cruel, it would damage them badly. Children above all need a secure home to flourish, and it was the American Way to provide that.
Freedom, bounded by such responsibilities, was also required by the American Way. You can’t have truth or justice when people aren’t free, because without freedom evil people hankering merely for power will have the ability to squelch both truth and justice, as well as the dreams of those future generations.
The Kents raised Kal-El with these values in mind. They therefore produced a noble man willing to use his extraordinary powers to do good, humbly. And to “never lie.”
No surprise Gunn had no interest in the American way. He comes from our modern academic culture that for decades now has been hostile to all things American, including normal families formed by the marriage of a man and woman. Instead, it sees perversion as a virtue, including the mutilation of castration of children for the god of DEI and the LGBTQIA+ mafia. Better to change the slogan. “The human way” is appropriately meaningless, as it could include cultures as various as America, Russia, China, and even Nazi Germany. The human way is great, because everyone has the right to “be himself,” even if that self wallows in hate and violence, or is even completed divorced from reality and basic biology.
Well, I stand for those old American values that the legend of Superman once espoused. And if you have any doubts about the nobility, I suggest you spend a glorious evening watching that 1978 movie. It will not only refresh you, it will reawaken your love of country, for all the right reasons.
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If we’re counting, SUPERMAN (2025) is now the *seventh* attempt to reboot Superman in live action for the screen, big or small. And maybe the overall trajectory is a telling one.
1) George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman (TV & film), 1951-58. Reeves’s Superman is everything you say in regards to the values and worldview he embodies, and laudable for all that. Speaking as a Gen Xer, however, I confess that I struggle to appreciate the George Reeves’ productions, because of the limitations of the writing and direction and very poorly aged production values. But that is not Reeves’ fault.
2) Christopher Reeve’s Superman (film), 1978-87. I recall so well seeing the first movie in the theaters as a wee tike, and for some reason the scene where Margot Kidder’s Lois has Supertramp’s “Give a little bit” playing on the car radio as she is wiped out, and then saved, from Luthor’s earthquake thanks to Superman reversing time burned into my brain for all time. Reeve’s Superman is a kind of secular Christ figure, and it somehow works beautifully thanks to Richard Donner’s direction, Gene Hackman’s hyper-charismatic Lex Luthor, and the fact that Christopher Reeve was just born to play this role. A 70’s film without any 70’s malaise, and I think that’s why it did so well at the box office: Americans were hungry for that by that point. Superman II was merely good, and the remaining two Reeve Superman movies were forgettable or worse, including the terrible aftertaste of the first attempt to inject progressive politics into Superman (Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), which fell rightly flat at the height of Reagan’s America.
3) Lois & Clark (TV), 1994-97. Superman IV aside, this is where the worm starts turning. Lois & Clark was a decent TV series, well cast, but it feels like more of a TV melodrama than a superhero production. It doesn’t subvert Superman values but it does move them to the background, in search of a more female audience demo, which it found.
4) Superman Returns (film), 2006. If you forgot about this movie, no one will blame you. Brandon Routh is cast as Superman almost purely due to his superficial resemblance to Christopher Reeve, and the whole thing is an attempt by Bryan Singer to do a straight up sequel to the Reeve films, only without much of a script, a hackneyed love triangle, a physics- and engineering-defying aircraft launched Space Shuttle, and a Kevin-Spacey Lex Luthor who is more cynical than Hackman and yet still manages to completely overshadow Routh because, well, he’s Kevin Spacey and Brandon Routh is Brandon Routh. SUPERMAN RETURNS does not subvert traditional American values outright, but it seems largely indifferent to them.
5) Man of Steel (film), 2013. Henry Caville takes a turn in the role in this and four subsequent DC Extended Universe movies in 2013-23, but only as a stand-alone in the first. I’d like to say that Caville is best (and best-looking) actor ever given the role, which, despite being an Englishman, he seemed born to play; the problem is, MAN OF STEEL is not actually a Superman movie, but a gritty genre subversion of the sort Zack Snyder lives to do. It actually sorta works as a genre subversion, just not as a Superman movie, Here, Superman is loathed and feared by Americans as an omnipotent alien menace who could kill us in droves at any moment, which he actually proceeds to do at the climax of the movie when he manages to destroy much of Metropolis fighting General Zod. In the immediate sequel BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Ben Affleck’s Batman decides he has to kill Superman for just this reason, and you find yourself rooting for Batman to do just that.
6) Superman & Lois (TV), 2021-24. It’s a CW channel superhero series, which says just about all that needs to be said. It’s a Gen Z update of LOIS & CLARK, complete with a Lois suffering breast cancer, offspring which do and do not inherit Superman’s powers and fight with each other as a result, and manages to never actually utter the phrase “truth, justice and the American way.” Or maybe it does and I could not stand to watch enough of it to verify that.
7) Superman (film), 2025. I have yet to see this, and I am sure that if I do, it will wait until it’s streaming. The YT streamer Critical Drinker actually concludes that if you can get past James Gunn’s idiotic press commentary, this Superman is a “flawed but good-hearted man” and has a “refreshing lack of political agenda.” He doesn’t give it a thumbs up, because it’s just too forgettable and by-the-numbers….but Gunn didn’t do the movie’s box office draw any favors by trying to politicize it on the stump. He certainly didn’t make *me* want to go see it.
Anyway, I agree with you, Bob: The 1978 SUPERMAN is still the benchmark for Superman on the screen.
Richard M: For those like me, who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s reading Superman in the DC comics drawn by Curt Swan, that 1978 movie was a masterpiece. Donner captured perfectly that artist’s vision, which of course made the movie all the more magical.
Richard M: I should add that the 1950s George Reeves show was entirely focused on catering to kids, which partly explains the style. This was cheap and innocent TV at the time, with audience assumed generally to be under the age of 12.
Donner accepted enthusiastically much of that show’s essence, but then gave his movie some depth to appeal to adults (many of whom were like me, kids who liked the TV show but who wished now as adults for a comparable version upgraded for them).
Richard M: What about the ten seasons of Smallville?
Or the Superboy tv series from the late 1980’s.
Richard M.;
Also add:
Kirk Alyn who played Superman in 2 popular Columbia Pictures 15-part Serials; the 1948 “Superman” & 1950 “Atom Man Vs. Superman.”
My Theory on “Who Generally Likes Which Version,” that I apply to Batman, Superman, Dr. WHO, and Star Trek is; depends on which version you grew up with. Sorta’ sets an anchor by which one measures all other versions. (if ya’ live long enough, they wreck everything….)
The Kinks
(Wish I could Fly Like) Superman
https://youtu.be/TfZ4o9JYpOM?list=RDTfZ4o9JYpOM
(6:07)
I have always had a love hate relationship with Superman.
All of the movies and tv shows (up till this one) have been great. Even the off shoots were pretty good.
But since i was a teen I have always had the idea that superman was pretty much too super. Too perfect and too powerful. He removed the need for any other super hero.
I also have a problem with the whole idea of superheros. They displace the need for “normal” hero’s in peoples minds. We would eventually come to rely on them totally.
But they are all great fun and fantasy in all forms.
In honor of Brad Arnold, who has stage 4 cancer;
3 Doors Down
Kryptonite (2000)
https://youtu.be/xPU8OAjjS4k?list=RDxPU8OAjjS4k
3:54
A full blood MAGA buddy comes in the other day and tells me he and his son went to see the new Superman movie.
The movie is apparently symbolically illustrating the Trump / Israel alignment and the oppression and evil and inequity that they both foster in the world.
He was not a fan.
Pure woke Hollywood Bull Crap by his telling.
“progressives” will die before they make any adjustment to their perspective.
So be it.
MORE GOOD NEWS FOR TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/more-good-news-for-trump-and-the-republican-party
Superman- A Beautiful Mess
The Critical Drinker (July 12, 2025)
https://youtu.be/8dtgH9Y4c78
10:34
Lois and Clark was further left than this film–which is really a kitchen sink attempt at SUPERFRIENDS with all the superheroes. I wish they had someone else play Guy Gardner.
Superman: The Animated Series has the best Luthor (Clancy Brown) and has Michael Ironside (Revok from SCANNERS) voicing Darkseid.
Truth justice and the human way!!!!
it even bombs in China.
I am very gen-x, and while enjoy Christopher Reeves and Gene Hackman as good, fun entertainment, I tend to rank Cavil in Man of Steel at the top.
It tends to paint Superman in the same vein as the Greek and Roman gods. Powerful, gifted, but still burdened with human wants and needs, frailties and most importantly, human flaws. And I thought the general population’s reaction of fear first to be the most realistic. compared the instant love and adoration of the masses from earlier versions.
In Man of Steel, he struggles with acceptance, but at the right time still risks everything for others, not because he is Superman, or because he is driven by some other worldly sense of justice, instead he acts when necessary, because that is what any good man would do. Or any man, if he wants to call himself a man, hopes he would do if he were there, at that moment. As such, he is still inspires in the way the character was always meant to inspire.