Superman 2025’s success shows the world is crying out for a saviour

I watched Superman, the 2025 film, the very weekend that statues honouring the hero, his girlfriend and his creators went up in Cleveland, Ohio.

It was a coincidence but both things can be seen as a measure of the response to Superman’s return – to the big screen and to the global conversation.

A fortnight after its release, the film is doing rather well at the box office despite gloomy predictions based on the Superman series’ mostly dismal track record of cinematic commercial success. (In fact, the 1978 Superman movie is said to be the only one that became a hit.)

This year’s Superman movie is doing so well that even I – rather an unlikely candidate to see a film about the Man of Steel – was tempted after rave word-of-mouth reviews.

As for the Cleveland statues, Superman was born in the city, springing fully formed from the imaginations of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster.

Considering Superman had his first action-packed comic book outing in 1938, Cleveland has waited rather a long time to honour its famous, if fictional, son.

Is it doing so now because of the general milieu everywhere you look, with the world crying out for a saviour? If so, I can confirm the 2025 Superman has offered a principled and powerful intervention in global affairs.

But perhaps Cleveland is not so high-minded after all and this is a canny attempt to lay claim its homegrown superstar? According to news reports, strenuous attempts are being made to honour the memory of Superman’s creators. And in 2013, the non-profit Siegel and Shuster Society helped launch a Superman-themed Ohio license plate.

That’s not cashing in exactly, just marking Superman’s earthly roots with pride.