A high-flying fight sends a skyscraper falling dramatically toward the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Tower City gleams with a sunny hue in the background. It's just a bit of pure Cleveland on display in the new Superman movie.
The DC Studios movie officially comes out on July 11, but presales have already been in high demand. The Hollywood Reporter predicts it having a $135 million box office opening weekend. Warner Bros. has been marketing the heck out of the film with big-time commercial placements and ads, including a faux cover of the Daily Planet wrapped around USA Todays this week (the Metropolis Meteors are on a losing streak, by the way). New Superman products (Children’s night lights! Watches! Fountain pen and ink sets! Crocs!!) are on their way into the world, ensuring that no matter where you look this summer, you’ll see the red, yellow and blue “S” insignia somewhere.
It is “Superman Summer.” And Cleveland is the center of it all, says Bill Garvey, the president of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission.
“Make no mistake, this is the biggest premiere of the summer,” Garvey says. “You can't pay for that kind of advertising.”
(Photo courtesy Jessica Miglio / Warner Bros. Pictures)
As a city, we now get to see Superman come home. Last summer, over the course of six weeks, the movie filmed in popular Northeast Ohio locations — marking the first-ever Superman movie to be filmed in Cleveland, where the character was first developed by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the 1930s. While today’s movie is a new, modern take of the Man of Steel, it’s rooted in the same sense of place that his creators would have experienced almost a century ago, with much of the same historic architecture.
At a preview film screening that took over Phoenix Theater in Great Northern Mall on Monday night, the peak-Cleveland moments captured the local audience. A bonus: Attendees took home specially made “Cleveland, Look Up!” movie posters after the event.
To live in Cleveland, and to see Cleveland depicted in Superman, is a treat. Some scenes that particularly stood out:
- plenty of moments in the Daily Planet newsroom (IRL: the Cleveland Leader building) with Superman/Clark Kent (David Corenswet) and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan);
- a big Progressive Field fight between the “Justice Gang” (including Cleveland native Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl) and a few cronies supporting Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult);
- a tiny fire-breathing monster being released in the Cuyahoga River with a twinkling nighttime Cleveland skyline on view;
- a battle with a much bigger version of the fire-breathing monster in Public Square’s splash pad;
- a military camp — and an epic fight with Mr. Terrific (played by a terrifically funny and snappy Edi Gathegi) — in the sands of Mentor’s Headlands Beach;
- a twirling, romantic kiss in Downtown Cleveland’s Arcade; and
- a post-post-credit scene that examines, of all things, a cement crack in the Cleveland Public Library’s Main Library.
(Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)
The plot is solid, especially for a superhero movie. Unlike past Superman movies, viewers don’t have to wait for Kent’s super-identity to be revealed to Lane; she’s in on the secret. The addition of Krypto the superdog breaks otherwise-weighty scenes with a dose of cuteness. The Green Lantern (a fired-up Nathan Fillion, with a blonde bowl-cut) also gives some crude comic relief, at one point battling with green energy constructs in the shape of middle fingers.
This is a James Gunn movie. There are sexy selfies that hold the key to a budding global conflict, and superintelligent monkeys designed to troll online, and a few delightfully discordant song placements, like Noah and the Whale’s peppy “5 Years Time” during a gory fight scene. These are the kinds of goofball moments that one can expect from Gunn and his previous movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and the live-action Scooby-Doo’s.
Historically, Superman is a character who takes himself, and his responsibilities, more seriously than Star-Lord or Shaggy. I’ll admit to being nervous about the Gunn approach in the latest Superman movie — but, here, the title character is also young, newly in love, and relatively inexperienced with the whole superhero thing. You can expect a little bit of immaturity in this storyline — even if things get a little silly at times. (This silliness is also, I think, what makes it a solid family-friendly flick.)
(Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)
When folks filtered out of the theater at Monday night’s preview screening of Superman during the credits, even more of Cleveland showed up, behind-the-scenes, as a lengthy “Ohio Unit” list of names scrolled down the screen. A roster of pros living and working in Ohio film, and all working on one of the year’s biggest movies.
Two audience members seated in the front of the theater threw their arms into the air and clapped, maybe seeing their names, or their friends’ names, appear there.
Garvey stuck around until the end of the credits, too.
“That’s why I love my job so much, to bring something home and something that resonates with Ohio and that [intellectual property] that was born here — and now it’s telling a story that resonates with the world — and a good, positive message, at that,” Garvey shared in an interview before the film. “A giant spotlight, a global spotlight, is shining on Cleveland.”
Lead image courtesy of Jessica Miglio / Warner Bros. Pictures.
More Superman stories:
- Cleveland Native Isabela Merced Flies High as Hawkgirl in “Superman”: Q&A
- Northeast Ohio Native Created Lois Lane’s Necklace in the New Superman Movie
- Superman Soars Over Cleveland in New Movie: 4 Locations to Spot
- Our Superman: Cleveland Native Brian Michael Bendis Gives the Man of Steel a Modern Makeover
- A Superman Statue and Plaza Could Come to Downtown Cleveland
- Meet the Man Trying to Make a Documentary About Superman's Cleveland Origin Story
- Why Isn't Cleveland Embracing Its Comics Heritage?
(Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)
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