The impending arrival of James Gunn’s Superman continues to deliver great nods to the hero’s past on the big screen. As most fans have gathered from the trailers to this point, Gunn is doing his best to tie his version of the Man of Steel to the original film version with Christopher Reeve. Hints of the classic theme song and a shared tone drive that home, also maintaining some distance from Zack Snyder’s DC Extended Universe. The latest example of this has just been shared via Gunn’s social media, offering fans a new poster that amplifies the throwback elements of the movie.
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As a few eagle-eyed Redditors pointed out, the design and look of the poster is a total throwback to the other posters from the ’70s. The small inset headshots of the cast and the black border drive it home. But the poster for the 2025 reboot has a few more nods, and possibly even a few thematic implications for the new film.
The original Superman poster features a silver Superman logo in front of a streaking bolt, meant to represent the Man of Steel flying by. The customary credits block gives the typical rundown of the title, cast, and crew, but the poster art skips any titles. Instead, we get the iconic tagline, “You’ll believe a man can fly.”
Gunn’s poster carries a lot of the same weight, with the throwback look, lack of title in the main art, and the credit box anchoring down the black border. It’s with Superman’s pose that you could dig in and make a few thematic connections. You can see David Corenswet looking back away from the new dawn and the words, “it begins.” It’s as if he is looking back at the actors who came before, with a lot of hope that this can bring the tone of the ’70s films into this new dawn. It’s either that or I should invest in some corkboard and red string.
If there is any deeper meaning to the posters, you’d have to bug James Gunn. But what is clear is that there is a real attempt to connect the new film to the feeling of those Reeve entries. It meshes well with the other source material that’s being used for crafting the film, like All-Star Superman and Superman for All Seasons.
While there is a lot of nostalgia, it is also very clear that Gunn is working from a new playbook, and it isn’t leaning away from the more comic book-style details that were avoided until recently. We likely weren’t close to seeing Superman battle a giant kaiju in the 1978 version. We were barely ready for Clark Kent to race a speeding a train awkwardly.
James Gunn’s Superman will land in theaters on July 11, 2025. This gives it plenty of time to get some traction before the release of Fantastic Four: First Steps on July 25. Which film will make a bigger impact at the movies? Are we finally moving away from darker hero stories for good? Let us know in the comments.
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