Up, up and away! Why Superman will be the biggest movie of the year

Man, I’m so hyped for 2025’s slate of movies!

Bong Joon-Ho is releasing his first film since Parasite with Mickey 17, Tom Cruise is bidding farewell to the Mission Impossible franchise, James Cameron is releasing a new Avatar flick and directors like Alex Garland, Ryan Coogler, Danny Boyle, Paul Thomas Anderson and Edgar Wright are all making original movies.

However, despite that awesome list of content, plus the usual Marvel movies, Disney remakes and so on, one movie has me more excited and nervous than any other.

That being James Gunn’s Superman.

Now, reading this, you might roll your eyes. “Why is a comic-book movie this guy’s most anticipated release of the year?”

Well, it’s simple. It’s Superman.

To completely understand why I’m so excited, I feel I should do some explaining for non-comic-book readers (not a knock; comics aren’t for everyone). See, Superman was created in 1938 and debuted in Action Comics #1. While popular, it wasn’t until World War II that the red, yellow and blue boy scout became one of the most recognisable figures in pop culture.

The last son of Krypton was the subject of radio shows, animated programs, serials and books galore, flooding the zeitgeist, and by doing so, cemented Clark Kent’s place in history.

However, it wasn’t until 1978 that Superman developed into more than just a character, instead becoming a symbol of hope around the world.

Superman: The Movie was released in Australian theatres in December that year. An unknown actor named Christopher Reeve flew onto the screens of millions and with it, the world truly believed a man could fly.

The film was an immediate success, grossing $300 million, which is equal to about $1.4 billion today. Reeve became a household name, comic-book sales were at an all-time high, and Superman became the world’s favourite superhero for almost 30 years.

Unfortunately, Superman hasn’t quite reached the heights of the original 1978 film and for the past 45 years has seen diminishing returns.

Reeve starred in an additional three films over the following 10 years, all of which drew in less and less money, with each movie attracting worse reactions from critics and fans alike.

The damage was done and for 19 years, Superman took a back seat to the likes of Batman, Spider-Man and the X-Men.

In 2006, Warner Bros decided to revive DC’s most popular hero, casting Brendon Routh as the titular hero in a reboot/continuation of the Reeve universe. The film did fine, making just shy of $400 million on a $223 million budget.

It struggled to compete against the likes of Sony’s Spider-Man films and 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies, and so for seven more years, Superman disappeared from the big screen.

Fast-forward to 2013, and Marvel/Disney has just released the first Avengers film and Iron Man 3, becoming the first two back-to-back superhero movies to amass more than $1 billion each without adjusting for inflation.

DC saw success with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and so Warner Bros saw a chance to create its own shared cinematic universe. Instead of the part-comedy, part-action flicks that its rivals at Marvel had become known for, DC decided to go down the more dark and gritty route that saw Christian Bale and Heath Ledger become so iconic.

So, Warner Bros hired visual director Zack Snyder to put forth his version of the hero and we got Man of Steel.

Gone were the bright-red undies and saving cats from a tree, replaced by world-ending stakes and a grim performance from Henry Caville as the lead.

The first film in the DC Extended Universe franchise made a solid return, drawing $670 million on a $250 million budget, but fans and critics were split down the middle.

Some loved the new and darker tone, while others felt the essence of what made Superman Superman was lost.

Unfortunately, Cavill’s next three performances as the hero were all marked by controversy. In 2016, Batman v Superman was panned almost unanimously and was blown away at the box office by Captain America: Civil War, which was released only a month later.

During the filming of Justice League in 2017, Snyder’s daughter tragically passed away, resulting in Avengers director Joss Weedon taking the reins. The movie was slammed, with conflicting tones, poor writing, strange casting and the infamous moustache scandal (worth a Google) all contributing to its bombing at the box office.

It became the most expensive movie ever made (at the time), costing just over $300 million, and ultimately lost money after advertising costs were added. Shortly after the film’s release, allegations against Weedon and poor box-office numbers resulted in the DCEU being left to die.

The franchise, which produced a further 11 titles, became synonymous with poor releases and worse box-office numbers, and in 2022 came the final nail in the coffin for the DCEU. Not even two weeks after the release of Black Adam, in which Henry Cavill returned as Superman after missing for five years, Warner Bros pulled the plug on the DCEU, ultimately firing Cavill and the rest of the cast of that universe.

Shortly after, James Gunn, director of all three of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and producer Peter Safran were put in charge of course-correcting DC’s poor run of form and producing a new shared universe, with their first movie set to be Superman.

Now, with all of that context, we haven’t had a good Superman film for almost half a century and it’s fair to say if Gunn’s film doesn’t work, we might not see another for half a century more.

We’ve already had a glimpse of the new film with a teaser trailer releasing in December 2024, with up-and-coming actor David Corenswet starring as Clark Kent and The Marvellous Mrs Maisel herself, Rachel Brosnahan, as love interest Lois Lane.

It showed a colourful new direction and even a brief look at Krypto the Superdog, which had me cheering upon viewing.

Yet, despite how good it looks, I’m still cautious, in the same way I was when Disney rebooted Star Wars a decade ago. I’m optimistic as hell, but history hasn’t been kind to Superman.