With James Gunn‘s Superman marking the dawn of a new DCU, U.S. audiences are navigating a new era of cultural and political strife.
During a recent conversation with Deadline following his Dogma (1999) victory lap at Cannes, Kevin Smith praised the DC Studios movie’s latest trailer for presenting a fresh approach to the superhero’s struggle with humanity, as well as a return to its camp comic book roots.
“It feels more comic book-y is what it is,” he explained. “I mean, number one, putting his trunks on the outside again is just charming, and including the dog is not something we’ve seen over the course of the last 10 years, and I think that’s such a smart choice, man. Unless they hurt that fucking dog, which, then can also be a strong choice, dramatically speaking. But it just looks so charming.”
Smith added, “And there’s this theory that I didn’t come up with, it’s been around forever, where whether Batman or Superman is ascendant and dominant in the culture has everything to do with where we are as a country. So, when times are good for Americans and prosperous, oddly enough, Batman is the dominant character because Batman is a dark fantasy about everything going wrong. … And then the flip theory of that is Superman is ascendant whenever the country is doing poorly or it needs help, and that’s when that character plays strongest.
“So, it would feel like based on that, like Superman, the stage is set for that movie to make so much fucking money,” he continued. “People wanna hope right now. People just want to believe in a fucking thing, man.”
Gunn, who wrote and directed the movie premiering July 11, previously echoed that sentiment as he explained of a “battered Superman” crash-landing in a December teaser, “I think that is our country.”
Smith praised the latest trailer that dropped last month as “really fucking smart,” adding: “By showing it from the perspective of like a journalist grilling him, especially if it’s Lois Lane, that’s adorable. But making him answer for all the things that, when they created that character, nobody ever once thought about, but now we live in an era where you can’t just do something good without it being political as well, it’s a smart sell on the movie, man. I think it’s gonna make so much fucking money.”
Gunn’s Superman stars David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, with Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, among a star-studded cast bringing some DC favorites to life.
