Seen at Ten

I didn’t know who Marlon Brando was.

I just knew the cool guy in white was Jor-El, which I knew from reading the comics. He didn’t look much like the guy from the comics, but I didn’t care. It’s a weird thing to remember about the first few minutes of Superman the Movie.

I was ten years old in December of 1978 and nothing I had ever seen compared to what I saw that day. Characters from the comic books my Dad brought home with him came to life on the big screen. Krypton. Metropolis. Ma and Pa Kent. Lois Lane. Even Lex Luthor.

I didn’t know the music was by John Williams either. I may have later when my Dad brought home vinyl copies of both his scores for this movie and Star Wars.

And oh yeah, Christopher Reeve. He looked fantastic in the suit and was a great embodiment of both Superman and Clark Kent. His smile was reassuring and his reaction to Lois Lane asking who had him as she dropped from the helicopter was still pretty funny.

I wrote last August that all a universe needs is a good story to tell and good characters to tell it with. I still maintain that the best universe-building any publisher could ever do stems from a really good story with really good characters.

It may surprise some that James Gunn and Peter Safran have been relieved of their duties as heads of DC Studios after only four years in the job and replaced by Marvel Studios vet Jeremy Latcham. I wasn’t blindsided by the news. However, I am a little surprised that the sequel to Gunn’s Superman, Man of Tomorrow, is still on the calendar for July 2027. I have opinions about all of it. Most of them fit on a napkin. All of them won’t change a thing.

One thing to remember is, nobody going to see Superman the Movie in 1978 knew or cared who was running Warner Brothers. I’m not sure I even knew Warner Brothers was running the movie. I just knew I had a great movie in front of me that someone somewhere made, and I had no idea what went into making it.

You can’t see a studio’s organizational chart when you’re sitting in a theater.

Whatever comes with DC Studios, I’ll be watching. Ten years old or so.

Be seeing you.