Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No — it's the first trailer for Sundance Film Festival favourite Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story flying right at us. From McQueen directorial duo Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, Super/Man is set to chronicle the extraordinary story of on- and off-screen hero Christopher Reeve, the man who brought the to-this-day definitive take on DC's Man of Steel to our screens across four films between 1978 and 1987, and the man whose activism for spinal cord injury sufferers following a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 redefined his heroism anew. Check out the emotional new look at the film below:
Hoo boy — if we're this dewy-eyed after a three-minute trailer, what hope do we stand of making it through the entire documentary in one piece? From those nostalgic opening shots of Reeve in full red-and-blue regalia in Richard Donner's 1978 Superman, to the Son of Krypton actor's talk show charm and humble assertion that "I'm not a hero," it's very clear that Super/Man is going to be an unapologetic — and rightfully so — love letter to Reeve. And boasting a wealth of candid home video and archival footage of Reeve at the height of his movie stardom as well as from across his post-accident journey both in public and private, Bonhôte and Ettedgui's doc — which boasts the likes of Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, and Reeve's children William, Matthew, and Alexandra among its contributors — looks to make good on its promise to tell the story we don't know about the man everyone did.
At the emotional peak of the trailer for this DC Studios and HBO produced doc, we hear Reeve — who passed away aged just 52 in 2004 — share his own personal definition of heroism, saying, "I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." We'll see that exact heroism defined by Reeve himself and those who knew and loved him best when Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story hits our screens in the UK on 1 November.