Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
Actor Christopher Reeve was the very embodiment of Cleveland, OH artist/writer-team Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s iconic DC superhero Superman. The NYC native never pandered to the material given him in director Richard Donner’s classic 1978 film Superman: The Movie. Rather, Reeve played to the absurdist elements of Godfather scribe Mario Puzo’s screenplay for the Man of Steel. The end result? We all left the movie theater believing that a man could indeed fly and that’s all because of an actor who we implicitly trusted when he proclaimed that he was sent here from his home planet of Krypton to “Fight for truth, justice and the American Way” (DC of 2024 might like you to forget that last bit of the famed mantra, but we’re all a little too smart for that, right?). And that’s the biggest tribute an audience can ever pay any actor. But, of course, there’s a lot more to Christopher Reeve than his tenure as Superman…
A new documentary was announced from our Action Comics aficionados over at The Wrap entitled Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story which chronicles the actor’s life trajectory from struggling actor, onscreen sensation and, poignantly in his last act of life, a symbol of hope for all of us after his tragic riding accident which left him paralyzed.
Premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story was directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui and is already earning raves from the most important audience: Reeve’s own family.
“You might think you know Superman, or the advocate, or whatever version of Christopher Reeve you think you know, but then you get to see him as a dad,” enthused the youngest son of Reeve, Will about the new documentary.
Seconded his daughter Alexandra Reeve Givens of the new doc: “One of the joys is that they uncovered so much archival footage. So there’s the outtakes from the original audition for Superman, interviews with dad from the ’70s and ’80s when we were still young kids..Seeing him at the height of fame and even old home movies we hadn’t spent much time with – suddenly we’re uncovering these moments and seeing them on the big screen. All of that woven together has been really beautiful and powerful.”
Word ‘round industry campfire has it that Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is all the buzz at this moment at the fabled Sundance Film Festival where it is being touted as a “sales title.” It’s still seeking distribution as of this writing, but check back at this spot with your X-ray peepers in around a week: We have a hunch that buyers will be lining up to get first dibs on this emotional new doc of an on and off-screen hero.
