How Warner Bros. made sure audiences knew Christopher Reeve’s Superman was something special

It’s strange to imagine a culture in which a superhero movie has to justify its existence to the masses. Of course, given Marvel’s post-Avengers: Endgame woes and the fact that superhero films are struggling internationally, such a state of affairs isn’t really that difficult to contemplate. However, in 1978, Warner Bros. had to deal with the opposite of superhero fatigue. The studio was about to launch Richard Donner’s “Superman” on a population whose only real exposure to superheroes had been via light-hearted television series. The generation that grew up reading comic books knew there was magic in the pages of their Marvel and DC books, but in pop culture terms, superheroes were nothing like the reliable, bankable legends they are today.

This posed a challenge for the Warner Bros. marketing team. while preparing “Superman” for its debut in December 1978. As Andrew Fogelson, vice president in charge of Warner Bros. worldwide promotion of the film, told the New York Times at the time: “From the beginning, we started thinking about what we were going to tell people. We had to guess how a simple marquee – ‘Here Comes Superman’ – was going to predispose them.” According to Fogelson, Warners believed such an announcement would be received positively, but the studio needed to simultaneously excite and inform. “We had to be clear from the beginning that this was not an animated film,” he explained. “It was not a remake of [1950s] television series. We had to let people know that this was a brand new activity based around what must be one of the greatest folk heroes in American history. »

How did they achieve this goal? With a marketing campaign that not only let people know what was in store for them, but also provided a successful marketing model that is still followed today.

“Superman” starred Christopher Reeve, a man whose Kryptonian portrayal has yet to be beaten. According to The New York Times report from December 1978, Reeve was chosen to play Superman because he was relatively unknown compared to other hopefuls such as Robert Redford and, strangely, Neil Diamond. But the Juilliard graduate still embodied the man of steel. In fact, Reeve embodied every aspect of the character, from Clark Kent – ​​whose performance he took inspiration from Cary Grant – to Superman/Kal-El himself. To this day, Reeve remains the benchmark, even in the wake of James Gunn’s charming, crowd-pleasing “Superman,” which also starred a Juilliard alum in David Corenswet. As adorably silly as Corenswet is, even he is indebted to Reeve, whose performance has proven unbeatable time and time again.

Of course, casting an unknown in the lead role had obvious downsides for Warner Bros. marketing team, which was already faced with it. The solution was to add other big names to the mix. Richard Donner, who had overseen what proved to be a smash hit for the director with 1976’s “The Omen,” was already taking the lead, but Marlon Brando’s involvement took things to a new level. Brando added seriousness, as did composer John Williams, who was coming off the success of his “Star Wars” score. On top of all this, Donner pushed himself and his team to create groundbreaking special effects, especially in the flying scenes. The “Superman” crew initially struggled to find a way to make Reeve fly. But after Donner dedicated an entire unit to making such a feat realistic, the flying scenes not only became some of the best in the film, but also gave the marketing team something extra to sell.

After Richard Donner and his team’s cutting-edge special effects made Christopher Reeve’s Superman fly, Warner Bros. had something more than star power with which to sell his blockbuster. The studio fully realized the film’s tagline “You’ll believe a man can fly”, and with Marlon Brando headlining alongside Lex Luthor actor Gene Hackman, viewers were more than willing to take their seats to witness such a spectacle. That same tagline also reminded audiences that this wasn’t really a feature-length animated film.

Elsewhere, television advertisements eschewed static headlines in favor of more dramatic images and live action. According to The New York Times report from December 1978, Andrew Fogelson was happy with a 30-second television spot that, similar to the film’s opening sequence, showed the names of the actors sweeping away the clouds. “It’s clearly alive,” Fogelson noted, “and not animation. It looks big and important and spectacular and special. That’s the kind of approach we tried to take with everything. [we] did.”

In the meantime, a soundtrack album has been produced as well as eight paperback novels. Additionally, the “Superman” brand was placed on products from over 100 different manufacturers. As the New York Times noted, with “the super-big guys,” things had changed for the industry. Brando’s “The Godfather” started a ’70s trend that continues today in which studios rush to create the next mega-hit, and marketing is a big part of it. “Superman” continued and even amplified this trend, which was then taken to a whole new level by “Batman” and the summer of “Bat-Mania” in 1989. At this point, however, thanks to Donner and Warner Bros., audiences weren’t completely fazed by the idea of ​​a blockbuster superhero movie.