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Straits Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Superman movies ranked: 45 years of hits, flops and reboots (1978-2025)
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox The Superman film franchise (1978 to present) was given a soft reboot in Superman Returns (2006), with Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel. But director Bryan Singer's take, created as a nostalgic return to the Christopher Reeve films, failed to make enough money. Time for a reboot, which happened with 2013's Man Of Steel, with Zack Snyder at the helm and British actor Henry Cavill in the lead.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Every actor who's played Superman, ranked from worst to best, including David Corenswet
Superman is one of the most beloved characters of all time. Over the years, 12 actors have played him on TV or in movies. Here's where David Corenswet, the newest Superman, fits into our ranking. Superman hasn't had a solo movie for over a decade, but the Man of Steel is flying back into theaters on Friday with James Gunn's "Superman." This time, he's played by "Twisters" star David Corenswet. The 32-year-old actor joins a pantheon of icons who have all donned the hero's cape and tights since he was first portrayed in live action back in 1948. Gunn's film takes a fresh stab at the character by jumping past his over-told origin story and instead drops audiences right into a fully-formed DC Universe. Here's how Corenswet stacks up against other Superman actors. 12. Brandon Routh ('Superman Returns,' 2006) Routh had the deck stacked against him from the moment he put that "S" on his chest. Playing the first Superman on the big screen since Christopher Reeve played the character in the 1980s, audiences suddenly had to adapt to a new actor. With a par-for-the-course movie, plus Routh's performance hardly giving audiences a "wow" factor, his Superman is pretty forgettable. It also didn't help that Routh was one-and-done with the character. 11. Dean Cain ('Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' TV show, 1993) Playing the character for four seasons, Cain certainly had the look and great chemistry with Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. What doesn't help his case is the show's corny TV sitcom vibe, which made him feel more like a TV dad than a superhero. 10. Channing Tatum ('The Lego Movie,' 2014) Tatum's overexaggerated and ego-filled portrayal of the superhero is fun and perfect for "The Lego Movie" franchise, including "The Lego Batman Movie." 9. Kirk Alyn ('Superman' TV show, 1948) Having the distinction as the first actor to ever portray Superman in a live-action work, Alyn was so synonymous with the character that when the serial first came out in theaters, his name didn't even appear on the screen when the serial first came out in theaters. The 15 episodes, which played in theaters before the main feature — a sequel serial, " Atom Man vs. Superman," followed in 1950 — laid the foundation of how we would see the character on-screen for the decades to follow: a beefy actor with striking looks and a proper attitude. 8. George Reeves ('Adventures of Superman' TV show, 1952) Reeves' TV portrayal leaned heavily on the "American way" vibe of the character, which led to major popularity for the show and for the actor. 7. Bud Collyer ('The New Adventures of Superman' animated TV show, 1966) Collyer was the voice of Clark Kent and Superman in the 1940s for the radio series "The Adventures of Superman." Thanks to the popularity of Alyn and Reeves in the role, Collyer was called upon to take on the character again, this time in animated form. The Sunday-morning cartoon was a fixture at family houses for four seasons. Collyer would portray Superman differently from Kent by making his voice deeper when he was the superhero. 6. Nicolas Cage ('The Flash,' 2023) OK, we know that Cage never really got to play Superman, as his casting as the Man of Steel in Tim Burton's "Superman Lives" got only as far as photos of the actor in the iconic suit during preproduction before Warner Bros. scrapped the whole thing. In "The Flash," we get a glimpse of Cage as Superman while Barry Allen races through the multiverse. So somewhere, we guess, "Superman Lives" is a reality, which means producer Jon Peters' vision of Superman battling a giant spider also came to fruition. And we also have to assume that the combination of Cage and Burton on the project was magic. It's hard to imagine Cage as Superman not being memorable. 5. Tyler Hoechlin ('Superman & Lois,' 2021) Hoechlin has the distinction of being the actor who's played Superman in more projects than anyone else on this list, thanks to appearing throughout The CW's superhero universe in "Supergirl," "Arrow," and "The Flash." So he certainly knows how to play the part. He also did a more than worthy job on his own series, "Superman & Lois," which ended in 2024. 4. Tom Welling ("Smallville" TV show, 2001) Playing a young Clark Kent for 10 seasons, Welling became a fixture for Superman fans and was perfect in portraying perfectly portrayed a young man trying to figure out who he really is. 3. Henry Cavill ('Man of Steel,' 2013) Love or hate the movies he was in throughout Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe, you can't argue that Cavill had the look and right performance to play the character convincingly in the world we live in. 2. David Corenswet ('Superman,' 2025) Strapping on the red cape in 2025 is no easy feat, given how familiar audiences are with the character. But Corenswet brilliantly portrays Superman as an imperfect person with godlike abilities, who strives to do his best in a chaotic world. Add his palpable chemistry with every actor in the cast, and Corenswet delivers one of the best, three-dimensional performances of both Superman and Clark Kent. 1. Christopher Reeve ('Superman,' 1978) From that smile to the bumbling way he played Clark, and, of course, how he flew, Reeve was born to play Superman. It also helped that the first two movies in the franchise he was a part of are up there as the best superhero movies ever made. In many ways, Reeve's performance is the high bar that every subsequent actor is measured against to see if they can fully embody the Superman character on screen the way he did. Read the original article on Business Insider
Forbes
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Superman' Is The Best Superman Movie With The Best Superman
Superman The box office is blowing up, audiences are raving, and Superman looks like it's going to be the mega-hit the DCU needs to kick off its new era under James Gunn. After seeing the film yesterday, I'm fully on board. I don't know where it will stand overall in the pantheon of dozens and dozens of superhero movies over the years, but there is little question in my mind that this is the best dedicated Superman movie we've ever gotten, and David Corenswet, its relatively unknown lead, is the best Superman we've ever had, at least with Gunn's script behind him. I was too young for some Supermen and too old for others for them to shape my view of the character. My Superman was Tom Welling in Smallville and Clark's myriad of animated series appearances, and that's what I feel Corenswet brings to life here. It's not just about the generalized concept of 'hope.' It's about the core of the character established over the years, beginning with Reeves. That was attempted to be replicated with Brandon Routh in his film. As I said, I loved the Smallville era (both Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult also said that the show shaped their time with their characters). Most recently, the unfortunately overlooked Tyler Hoechlin did an excellent job with Clark in Superman and Lois. Superman But Corenswet is the best, and this is the best Superman film. It is very tough to battle nostalgia if we're talking about the Reeve films, particularly the first two. But the first one aired a decade before I was born, and I just connect with this latest one, fifty years later, on a higher level. Superman Returns was a decent stab at the character, but it missed the mark. As for the all-consuming Henry Cavill debates and comparisons, I'm not anti-Cavill or Snyder in general. I think there is a time and place for a darker look at Superman, and I don't begrudge the attempt. I like Man of Steel quite a bit, and Cavill is about as picture-perfect as you get in terms of the look of the hero. But both that film, and to a greater extent, Batman V Superman, failed the character and the actor, despite some cool moments and visuals. 2025's Superman, new tone or not, is just a better film. It's a comic book; it's the animated series brought to life. The 'aw shucks' version of Superman here, but extremely emotionally charged at times, is a stellar rendition of the character. His dynamic with Lois has more chemistry than we've ever seen (much of that due to the also-excellent and perfectly cast Rachel Brosnahan), and his instantly harrowing rival with Lex is among the character's best (much of that due to the also-excellent Nicholas Hoult). Superman This Superman is about saving, not destroying. One of my favorite moments of the film involves Clark desperately zooming around, attempting to prevent a monster from smashing into nearby buildings as the Justice Gang show little regard for such things. He's saving little girls, dogs, squirrels, he even wants to save the monster. It's a moment that 'gets' Superman, and feels in sharp contrast to the blunt instrument of Cavill, most recently. A hotly debated moment (spoilers) will be the extreme change of Kal-el's parents revealing that they did in fact want him to conquer Earth and 'breed' (ick) more Kryptonians there after their own planet died. It's a very sharp change from almost all of the source material, but in this film, it paid off both in terms of a narrative turn that shaped the entire conflict and then a gratifying final moment where Clark embraces his 'true' parents, the Kents, and realizes that he's been shaped by both them and his own choices, as his father said. I'll take some comic alterations to produce a better film if need be. If the film has issues, I don't think it's with Clark. I don't think the Daily Planet stuff was explored well enough. I thought Eve was so over the top it was a bit distracting, even if this is a comic brought to life. The Ultraman reveal felt like it both was and was not meant to be a secret, which created an awkward dynamic of whether we're supposed to actually be surprised or not. But the flaws are not enough for me to demote the movie below any of the other Superman films. Again, all Supermen owe a debt to Reeve. I do not hate Cavill's version. But this? This was something special, and if it's at all indicative of where Gunn's DCU goes from here, we should all be very excited. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy
Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Superman review — this migraine of a movie is superhero soup
The question has tormented comic book fans for months. How will this new, rebooted and ninth Superman movie of the modern era — a series that started with Christopher Reeve in 1978 — approach the central character, now played by the TV star David Corenswet. Will he emphasise the folksy energy of Reeve while battling a series of near-invincible alien beings? Will he be a slightly bland smoothie like Brandon Routh in Superman Returns, negotiating a romance under the shadow of apocalyptic threats from Lex Luthor? Or will he be a moody battler in the Henry Cavill mould, struggling to find a character amid garish CGI pyrotechnics and tediously protracted fight scenes? The answer, alas, is simply yes. Yes to it all. And so Superman has indeed returned in a maximalist migraine of a movie, directed and written by the Guardians of the Galaxy veteran James Gunn, a film-maker also charged here with launching a new 'universe' of DC-sourced movie adventures. Good luck with that. Gunn approaches the nerdosphere's most celebrated property like a giddy amnesiac who has missed the precipitous rise and fall of multi-character Marvel superhero movies and is instead stuck somewhere in the early 2010s. Nor has he apparently seen the recent Marvel instalment Thunderbolts, a genuinely delicate film about mental health that ended five 'phases' and several billion dollars of lycra-clad mayhem with the tacit acknowledgment that comic book bombast was dead. Superman begins in medias res with a battle between Corenswet's hero, a mysterious masked villain called Ultraman and a mutant female villain called the Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria). Both baddies are controlled remotely via series uber villain Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult with the kind of screen-chewing, jugular-busting intensity that suggests his only directorial notes were 'More! More! More!' • James Gunn: Some people will take offence at my new Superman Luthor is furious with Superman for interfering with a lucrative military conflict between the fictional warring neighbours of Boravia and Jarhanpur. These nations are variously coded in newsy exposition as either India and Pakistan or Russia and Ukraine until, in a sun-scorched sequence near the end, we witness a skirmish that has unfortunate, and deeply uncomfortable, echoes of an IDF incursion into Gaza. Meanwhile, on Planet Overkill a giant lizardy thing is about to crush Metropolis too, but thankfully Superman is joined by his super-dog Krypto (breed: CGI) and a friendly team of Avengers-lite superheroes called the Justice Gang, including Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern and Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl. Fillion, mugging broadly in a bowl cut, is presumably awaiting a DC Studios spin-off and plods dutifully through some 'ironic' genre gags that would've been cut from even the weakest episode of the TV satire The Boys. Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews Meanwhile (yes, we're still on meanwhile), Luthor is experimenting with an atomic collider that has accidentally torn asunder the fabric of the universe and created an all-consuming black hole. This is the cue for some enervating 'fifth dimensional' sequences that are very Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and ultimately suggest that some kind of AI for blockbusters has masticated and then vomited out the narrative lowlights of almost every superhero movie since the first Iron Man. There are glimmers of intrigue, as well as quirks and curios. Rachel Brosnahan performs miracles with her threadbare Lois Lane, making you wish for more than the paltry scenes she's given with Corenswet (a serviceable turn). There's a handful of callbacks to the Reeve era, including the title font, as well as a belaboured running gag about office gofer Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) being irresistible to women. Plus, in this world, the power of the broadsheets is unassailable. They can stop war, instantly, with a single headline. And they can alter the fate of the entire universe. Turning back time and creating better superhero movies? If only.★★☆☆☆12A, 129minIn cinemas from Jul 11 Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Geek Tyrant
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Trailer for Director Joseph Kahn's Horror Comedy ICK with Brandon Routh and Mena Suvari — GeekTyrant
Fathom has released a trailer for an upcoming horror comedy titled Ick , and new film from music video director Joseph Kahn, who also directed the films Torque , Detention , and Bodied . In the film, 'For almost two decades, a viscous vine-like growth known colloquially as 'The Ick' has benignly crept into every nook & cranny of life while the residents of small town Eastbrook remain blasé about its existence. 'The exceptions are former high school football star-turned-hapless science teacher Hank (Brandon Routh) and his sardonically perceptive student Grace (Malina Weissman) who are thrown together by Grace's mom's (Mena Suvari) closely-guarded secret and a mutual suspicion that the Ick is about to unleash some monstrous mayhem.' The movie is described as "A wild ride driven by a power punk spirit, Ick is a dizzyingly fun & hilariously grotesque homage to throwback PG horror flicks, as well as an ode to Millennial nostalgia manifested in soundtrack needle drops by American Rejects, Paramore, and Blink 182." The movie looks like it might have some fun and entertaining moments. The movie will hit theaters on July 24th, and again starting from July 27th-29th, 2025.
