Hope is often treated as if it is this ethereal thing, as something delicate that can fall apart at any moment if met with the slightest obstacle. That’s not true at all though, is it? Hope is not a soft emotion. It’s not fragile or small. Hope is gritty. It’s defiant and persistent and it is brave and stubborn. And sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it’s scary, too. I suppose it is for all of those reasons in conjunction with the current state of the world that a trailer about an upcoming Superman film left me with tears streaming down my face. (I was in public and appropriately embarrassed, please respect my privacy during this time.)
The opening scene immediately left me with a pit in my stomach. I quite like James Gunn’s work, but as Superman slams into snow and his labored breathing plays through the first shots, I immediately began to worry that we’d be getting another grimdark take on Superman when, for my money, the words “grimdark” and “Superman” belong nowhere near each other. But once the music begins to swell — an homage to the iconic John Williams score, with a twist — and the rest of the trailer begins to play out, it becomes clear that the worry was completely unfounded.
Superman’s first trailer is, from start to finish, a message of hope. Opening with our hero slamming at high speeds into the cold ground, bleeding and gasping for air, isn’t just about showing the vulnerability of a mostly invulnerable hero or focusing on how that hero can, in fact, fall. It’s about showing how many licks hope can take while remaining intact. Even when on life support, it’s still there, ready to fight.
It’s been forgotten a little bit so far as recent cinematic takes on the hero are concerned, but that hope and earnestness has always been the point of Superman. And here, in this trailer, we see both things expressed in so many different ways. We see a flash of Clark Kent looking like a lost puppy at his desk at the Daily Planet, we see the small moments between he and Lois Lane while he’s both in costume and out and, speaking of the costume, even that is harkening back to something so deeply kind and warm about the character.
When IGN and other members of the press were invited to preview the trailer earlier this week, we had the opportunity to participate in a Q&A with writer-director Gunn, David Corenswet (Superman), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor). Gunn and the cast said several things that struck me throughout the conversation, but the first is something so small yet critical about the Superman suit that I find myself smiling about it days later.
“It was freaking colorful and had the underwear and the whole thing, and I was like, ‘I don't know, it's so colorful,’” Gunn says of his first time seeing the suit. “And David goes, ‘Yeah, he's an alien from outer space who's super powerful, who doesn't want children to be afraid of him.’”
A bit of this conversation has already made its way around the web after journalists began to share their set visit interview with Gunn, but I bring it up again here for the same reason Gunn keeps sharing the anecdote. A two-sentence conversation between the actor meant to take on this iconic character for (likely) a huge hunk of his life and the director tasked with pulling it all together shows such a fundamental understanding of a character that we have seen so consistently misunderstood over the last decade that I can’t help but be moved by it. And I am not alone.
“When I saw David in the costume, I was in awe,” says Hoult. “I hate to admit, it made me feel warm and fuzzy, it made me feel like a kid again [...] I had a little private grin on my face, [thinking] this is amazing. And then I turned around and I saw everyone else in the room with the same look on their face watching him.”
It should be impossible not to romanticize Superman and what he stands for. The suit, its colors, its meaning all has to matter for a Superman movie to work. And y’all? I think these crazy kids might make it so. “Look up” isn’t just a slogan they’ve slapped on a movie poster. Gunn knows what this character means not just to the pantheon of comic and superhero history, but to the world as it stands at this exact moment.
“We do have a sort of a battered version of Superman at the beginning. I think that that is our country. And I think that I believe in the goodness of human beings,” Gunn begins. “I think this movie is about that. It's about the basic kindness of human beings and that it can be seen as uncool and it can be seen as under siege when some of the darker voices are some of the louder voices.”
We are at a global tipping point. Every direction you turn there’s another atrocity or some other unspeakable act of hatred. So that this trailer makes a point to showcase the understanding that Superman doesn’t just belong to America is particularly meaningful. We’ve retired “truth, justice, and the American way.” It’s “truth, justice, and a better tomorrow” now. Gunn said plainly that every scene in this trailer is very intentional, so seeing the creator make sure to showcase Superman meaning something on global scale by showing our hero saving more than just Americans is meaningful.
That impact hits because of a myriad of reasons with Superman, of course, being at the forefront. But something that feels equally important is Gunn’s outlook on the world as both the director and writer of the film.
“I live in a very rural part of Georgia and I see the kindness and the beauty of the people every day who don't share all the same political beliefs as I do,” Gunn shares. “But I think that's what the movie is about, the basic fundamental decency of human beings all over the world.”
That Gunn believes what he is saying here is so imperative to the success of this story, even if I can’t bring myself to share his optimism on mankind. He knows that kindness is, at its core, the most important aspect of bringing us the boy scout, and he made sure to drill that into the cast from their very first dinner together.
“At the end of the day, the world doesn't always seem to have so much good in it, and this movie has to truly be that,” Gunn notes. “And for it to truly be that means that we had to be good to each other, we had to be good to the crew, and then it had to be that authentically. And so for me, the movie was about that more than anything else.”
There is the finest of lines to tread while telling any kind of narrative centering around the Man of Steel and, without that authenticity, everything can quickly become twee or even condescending. But there is not a moment in this trailer that feels quant.
Instead, every frame is meaningful. It’s impactful and, yes, authentic, from intrepid reporter Lois Lane doing what she does to an anguished Lex Luthor hearing chants for his nemesis, or from the swell of music bursting as Superman protects a child to his labored breathing as it shifts to a desperate whistle as he calls Krypto for help. You feel every second of this trailer. It almost forces you to, demanding that you take your hurt or your bitterness and dare to remember what hope feels like.
In a trailer filled with kaiju and superheroes, Gunn manages to do what some filmmakers spend entire runtimes failing to accomplish: he captured the sheer humanity that is essential to telling a Superman story. And, while I’ve dished a heaping of well-earned praise on Gunn, don’t think he’s pulled it off all on his own. Look at this Clark Kent-ass response from Corenswet as he discusses how he got to the bottom of how to become Superman.
“It was when I started working with Rachel that I got clear about who Clark and who Superman was,” he says.
Get outta here with this guy. Did I mention that he called out Superman Returns and Smallville as his biggest inspirations for his character? Say what you will about Returns (I don’t accept Superman Returns slander in this house), it had a fundamental grasp on the hero that most contemporary stories fail to. Same goes for the beloved Smallville.
Gunn insists that not all of the film’s protagonists are good guys, though. The director insists that Krypto is “not nearly the best dog you've seen. There's a lot more of Krypto than you see in this trailer.”
I am buying every single thing that James Gunn is selling here except for the idea that Krypto the Super Dog is not, in fact, a very good boy. Look at that scruffy guy. How can you believe he doesn’t have the best intentions? I’ll let you decide if that last sentence is about James Gunn or Krypto.
Ultimately, I cannot recall a more successful trailer in recent memory. We saw nothing, but we also saw everything. We glimpsed all of our heroes, as well as a frame of Metamorpho and what appears to be Superman cradling an incapacitated Kelex. We saw meaningful flashes of Hoult as Lex and Brosnahan as Lois, who both showcase the personality they bring to their respective characters in just seconds, and we know that we’ll be getting some kaiju as Superman suits up to defend Earth.
But, mostly we know that we’re getting the boy scout, and that we’re getting hope. And even if you strip away all the explosions and grandeur, those two things would be enough.
