Can 'Superman' reboot with David Corenswet make the Man of Steel cool again?

Vincent Bonfanti knows where he’ll be when "Superman" arrives in theaters  on Thursday, July 10: watching it with friends at the Regal Westbury near his home in Levittown. On Friday, too. And again on Sunday. He’s already purchased the tickets — 23 of them — and scheduled the time off from his job as a hospital staffer.

"I’m through-the-roof excited," says Bonfanti, 41, who owns dozens of items of Superman memorabilia, including comics, figurines, soda cups and even an unopened bag of Kryptonite-flavored Doritos purchased at a 7-Eleven in 2006. Superman, he explains, helped him get through a childhood marked by bullying, connected him to a fellow fan who became a close friend and inspired him to devote much of his spare time to charity.

"I owe a lot to the character," Bonfanti says. "There’s a fantasy to Superman that makes him magical. He’s a person who has all these abilities, and he just wants to do the right thing."

The new "Superman" has a lot riding on its shoulders. It’s the first film from DC Studios, a new division of Warner Bros. Discovery (its predecessor was DC Films). Written and directed by James Gunn (whose "Guardians of the Galaxy" trilogy has endeared him to comics fans), "Superman" is also intended to reboot and rebrand the DC Universe, previously a $2.7 billion film franchise that labored in the shadow of the $12 billion Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it’s the first release under Gunn as DC Studios’ co-chair and co-CEO (roles he assumed in 2022). With a reported budget of $225 million, "Superman" is looking at an opening weekend of as much as $145 million, according to various box-office predictions.

But there’s something else, something less quantifiable, about this "Superman." Anecdotally, at least, it appears to be striking an emotional chord with fans. The new version of the character seems noticeably old-fashioned and All-American — a return to the days when he still wore little red trunks and owned a cape-clad dog named Krypto. The lead role goes to David Corenswet, a virtual unknown, in a clear echo of Christopher Reeve, the boyish newcomer who in 1978 defined Superman for generations to come. Is there still a place in today’s cynical world for this idealistic superhero? More than that: Could "Superman" be the movie we need now?

"Everyone desperately wants it to be good," John Riley, owner of Grasshopper’s Comics in Williston Park, says of the movie. Superman isn’t just a hero in tights, Riley says, "he is the ultimate moral compass. He’s the one who is willing to stand for something, no matter what. Maybe we need someone like that again at this moment in time."

Superman made his debut in the first issue of "Action Comics" in 1938. Though Hugo Hercules had already used superstrength to battle bad guys, and The Phantom had already donned a skintight suit to fight crime (both were newspaper-strip characters), Superman is widely credited as the first true superhero. His backstory is by now almost universally familiar: Born on the doomed planet Krypton, raised on Earth by Kansas farmers, he masquerades as the mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent — fooling even his favorite colleague, Lois Lane — but when duty calls, he dons his red-and-blue outfit and becomes Superman, defender of truth, justice and the American way.

Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, two first-generation Jewish kids who met in Cleveland, Superman was inspired by the pulp fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs ("John Carter of Mars"), the comics of Alex Raymond ("Flash Gordon"), countless old movies (from Harold Lloyd comedies to Douglas Fairbanks swashbucklers) and plain old real life (Siegel dreamed of being a journalist, while Shuster based the nerdy Clark Kent on himself, according to their 1983 interview in Nemo, a comics history magazine).

Superman’s creation "is an iconic story in itself," says Lon Cohen, editor and publisher of the nerd-culture website SciFiSland.com, based in Rocky Point. He notes that Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" was inspired by Shuster, Siegel and other early comics creators. Superman, Cohen explains, is in some ways both a quintessential immigrant and an American. "The whole thing has a good story, and that’s why we’re so fascinated with him."

Superman became hugely popular during World War II and the 1950s, spawning his own line of comics, a radio show, a series of animated theatrical shorts and a television show starring George Reeves (still the definitive portrayal for some fans). During the 1960s and ’70s, Superman was relegated mostly to low-quality television cartoons. It was 1978’s "Superman: The Movie," starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder (as Lois Lane), that put the character back on the public’s radar.

That film bowed during a turbulent time in America: post-Nixon, mid-Carter, mired in stagflation, with simmering fears of Middle East turmoil. "Back then, Superman was considered corny," says Glenn Greenberg, of Whitestone, Queens, a former Marvel Comics editor and author of the special-issue magazine "The Story of Superman." But by dropping the character into the real world, he says, the movie struck a chord. When Superman tells Lois he’s fighting for truth and justice, for instance, she scoffs: "You're gonna end up fighting every elected official in this country!"

"As long as you take that approach, and don’t pretend that the world around him is just as sweet and innocent and Pollyanna-ish as he is, I think you’ve got a great formula," Greenberg says.

That "Superman" kicked off a franchise that endured through the mid-1980s, but the character suddenly disappeared from theaters and returned to the comics world. In 1992, DC launched "The Death of Superman," a previously unthinkable storyline. "They wanted it to be edgy because it was the ’90s," says Cohen, recalling a decade of grunge rock and downbeat pop-culture. "There was Nine Inch Nails," he recalls, "and everybody started dressing up like Death," a gothy character from the "Sandman" comics. "It was a period of cynicism, so they had to do something with Superman."

Also starting in the 1990s, Superman found a home on television. “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” starring Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain, ran from 1993 to 1997 on ABC and found a loyal audience. “Smallville,” a teen-oriented version of the Superman story starring Tom Welling and set in the small town where he grew up, ran for 10 seasons on The WB (later The CW) from 2001 to 2011. More recently, The CW launched “Superman & Lois,” a four-season series that envisioned the title characters as a married couple with children.

Back on the big screen, the 2006 feature "Superman Returns," featuring Brandon Routh in the title role, drew strong reviews, made $390 million worldwide and even earned an Oscar nod for visual effects, but a new series failed to materialize. Superman wouldn’t come back to the big screen until 2013’s "Man of Steel," which put Henry Cavill in the blue suit under the direction of Zack Snyder, then best known for the R-rated comic-book adaptation "300” (2006).

The Snyder-Cavill movies — four of them over roughly eight years — made millions of dollars and earned a dedicated following but also left many viewers cold. Critics complained the movies felt generic and overly dark, and that the new Superman — brooding, riddled with self-doubt — had become unappealingly glum. “

"It was a much more cynical character," Cohen says. "People try to adapt him, but I don’t think you can. I think he represents hope."

That appears to be Gunn’s feeling as well, at least judging by the new film’s trailers and posters. Though there are some new twists (Lois Lane, played by Rachel Brosnahan, already knows Clark Kent’s secret identity) and a host of lesser-known DC characters (including a snarky version of Green Lantern, played by Nathan Fillion), the film also has a strong retro vibe. Fans noticed instantly that Superman’s traditional red trunks — removed by Snyder for a modern look — are back. And Krypto, the superdog introduced in the comics in 1955, makes his first-ever appearance in a live-action "Superman."

Krypto could be a stroke of genius that will bring more families and kids to the movie, Greenberg predicts. "I’m amazed nobody has ever thought of it before," he says. "A cute little dog in a cape, helping him fight the bad guys? That’s brilliant."

"Superman" will undoubtedly have a strong opening weekend, according to Bruce Nash, publisher of The Numbers, a website that analyzes the box office. The larger question, he says, is "What is the cultural moment?" To be a true blockbuster, Nash says, the movie can’t resonate only with superhero fans. "It has to reach everybody."

For those fans, though, Superman has never been about the box office. Superman does indeed stand for truth and justice, says Greenberg, as well as strength and courage and hope. "Every time I say this," he adds, "I get a lump in my throat, but — he’s a friend."