James Gunn is bringing the Man of Steel back to where he belongs. No, not to Metropolis or the Justice League WatchTower (yet), but back to the silver screen. To celebrate the release of the DC Universe's Superman, I turned back time and watched the film that started it all: Superman: The Movie. Starring Christopher Reeve as Superman, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, and Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, this 1978 classic proved that superheroes could work on the big screen.
While Superman has no trouble holding up a building, the question of whether the original film holds up is a weightier matter to consider. Rather than answer that question, I put together a list of three things from Superman: The Movie that I want to see in the new film, and three things I definitely don’t.
I don’t want to wait for the reveal
James Gunn has been pretty open about the fact that this isn’t another Superman origin story. Like the Waynes dying in Crime Alley or Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider, everyone knows where Superman’s journey begins. In 1978, though, an origin story was necessary, and oh boy, did audiences get one.
Not only did Christopher Reeve not appear on screen until the 45-minute mark, Superman doesn’t swoop in to save the day until 15 minutes later, at the halfway point of the film. In Man of Steel, Henry Cavill emerges from his Kryptonian ship in full gear for the first time at the 49-minute mark and then immediately goes on an iconic journey around the world as he learns to fly.
I suspect Gunn and company won’t make audiences wait long to ask if that’s a bird or a plane streaking across the sky. Expect a lot of Superman right from the jump.
I do want to see Lois Lane struggle with spelling
Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane is going to know that David Corneswet’s Clark Kent is Superman right away in this one, as she should. Lois Lane has evolved well past her earliest comic book days of being gaslit in every way imaginable so as not to discover her favorite hero’s secret identity. This makes sense because Lois Lane is not only a talented investigative journalist, she’s also an intelligent person.
Still, intelligent people have their flaws, and in Superman: The Movie, Lois just can’t seem to spell anything correctly. In a world before autocorrect – and even the personal computer – Lois did her work on a typewriter, so every spelling error carried a little more weight than it does in the digital age. While being a bad speller in 2025 is hardly a real problem, it’s a wonderfully humanizing quality for an otherwise out-of-this-world journalist. Give me a Lois with one relatable flaw, if only as a reminder that you don’t have to be perfect to snag a superhero.
I don’t want to see an airplane save
Special effects have come a long way in the nearly 50 years since Reeve first took flight. Not only can heroes fly faster, jump farther, and punch harder, but they can also make bigger, bolder saves. While rescuing a plane is always a relevant, shocking moment that would see Superman make a statement, we’ve seen it on screen before. Reeve helped Air Force One to safety after it blew an engine in a thunderstorm. Brandon Routh assisted a commercial airliner in 2006’s Superman Returns. Supergirl also saved a plane in the pilot episode of her CBS / CW series. Look outside the DC Universe, and you'll find that Tony Stark had his own Air Force One rescue in Iron Man 3, and Peter Parker tangled with turbulence in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
I’m not saying Superman should avoid saving a plane if one’s in trouble; it’s just that audiences know how that one ends. Here’s to hoping all flights run smoothly and on time for this Superman adventure.
I do want to see an empathetic Eve Tesmacher
Sara Sampaio will put her supermodel training to work as Lex Luthor’s girlfriend and criminal accomplice, Eve Tesmacher. In the original film, Valerie Perrine plays Miss Tesmacher with an empathy that perfectly contrasts the unfeeling cruelty of Luthor.
When Superman is poisoned with Kryptonite and left to drown in Lex’s train station-turned-underground-lair swimming pool (yes, that’s an actual location in the film), Eve battles her conscience before jumping in to save the waterlogged hero. It’s a moment that proves that anyone can be a hero if they’re willing to do the right thing. Lex Luthor loves nothing in the world more than the man in the mirror, so finding some humanity in the people he surrounds himself with might just give Superman the edge he needs to topple his nemesis’s latest plot.
I don’t want to see Jonathan Kent die
Look, some heroes just need the death of a loved one to kickstart their journey. (Looking at you, Uncle Ben.) Superman does not. There are plenty of Superman stories where both Ma and Pa Kent are alive and well, and the Big Blue Boy Scout is still every bit the hero he’s meant to be.
Kal-El already has two deceased parents; let’s not add a third to the mix unnecessarily.
I do want to see a Lex Luthor hairpiece
Gene Hackman famously refused to shave his head to play Lex Luthor. In fact, he barely relented on shaving his mustache, but the hair stayed. To get around having an iconic bald character with a full head of lettuce, Hackman’s hair was styled in a variety of ways to make it look like he was wearing a hairpiece. Several wigs were added as props throughout the film to continue the joke. It’s only at the very end of the movie, when Superman drops Luthor and his incompetent henchman in prison, that Luthor pulls back his hair and reveals his chrome dome.
Even the last live-action appearance of the character - Jesse Eisenberg’s depiction in Superman Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - featured a shocking amount of hair until the film’s final moments. Fast forward to now, and Nicholas Hoult is beautifully bald in every shot we’ve seen prior to the film’s release. Hoult revealed in an interview that he let his older son take the first pass with the clippers when it was time to shave his head.
I am pro-bald Lex, but I’m still going to need at least one hairpiece, and the worse it looks, the better. Hackman and company had fun with it, and here’s to hoping Hoult and Gunn do, too.