If you walked out of the July 10 premiere thinking you’d just watched another spandex-and-sky-beams spectacle, congratulations—you missed the point so hard you probably still believe Clark Kent’s glasses are a good disguise.
James Gunn’s 2025 SUPERMAN is not a reboot. It’s a surgical strike on the very idea of “perfection.” And Twitter is still bleeding.
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A Superman Who Can’t Save Everyone
David Corenswet’s Kal-El spends half the film apologizing—literally. A six-minute sequence of him hovering above a collapsing bridge in São Paulo, tears mixing with rain as he realizes he can only rescue 37 of the 42 commuters, has already been meme-ified into oblivion. Except the memes aren’t funny; they’re GIFs of people sobbing in IMAX rows. One viral TikTok overlays real 911 audio from the 2024 Turkey earthquake under the scene. It’s at 43 million views and climbing . -
The Great Western Hype vs. the Chinese “Meh”
North American box-office: $287 M in five days.
Mainland China: $19 M and a 5.7 on Maoyan—worse than Morbius .
Why? According to Weibo’s top film critic “@Dr.Film,” Chinese Gen-Z audiences “don’t need another lonely god; we need a competent civil servant.” Translation: Gunn’s broken, self-doubting Superman feels too much like an overworked millennial, not the omnipotent elder brother they crave. The debate has ignited a cross-Pacific flame war under #SupermanSoHuman and #WeWantSteel, both trending worldwide. -
The Lois Lane Scene That Got a Standing Ovation (and a Ban in Two Countries)
Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois refuses to publish Superman’s open letter of apology. “Stop confessing and start fixing the system that made the bridge collapse,” she snaps. It’s the first superhero blockbuster where the journalist love interest calls the hero a “brand liability.” Qatar and Saudi Arabia have apparently cut the line, citing “undermining public trust in infrastructure initiatives.” Netflix Middle East is already commissioning a documentary about the censorship. -
Easter Egg or Therapy Bill?
Freeze-frame the Fortress of Solitude and you’ll spot Post-it notes that read:
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“Mom, do I make you proud?”
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“If I hear ‘great power’ one more time, I’ll scream.”
Gunn confirms they were Corenswet’s real diary entries, taped up by production designer Beth Mickle. Fans are leaving identical sticky notes on the actual Smithsonian Superman ’78 statue; security gave up removing them after 3,000 showed up overnight.
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The Secret End-Credit That Broke Fandom
There’s only one. No shawarma, no multiverse portals—just a black screen and a voicemail from Pa Kent (a digitally de-aged Kevin Costner):
“Son, the world won’t remember how high you flew; it’ll remember how gently you landed.”
Cue ugly crying. Warner Bros. has started handing out waterproof “Cape-Kits” at select screenings. They’re sold out on eBay for $89 a pop.
So yeah, the cape is torn, the symbol is cracked, and the man in it finally looks like us—exhausted, terrified, and still trying.
Grab tissues, not popcorn.
