Alright, so before I tackle this, I’m going to come out and say how Jeff Sneider, who’s become a good friend, has rarely let me down with his reporting; he’s a well connected guy in the industry and he reports what he sees, which can’t always be said about many of today’s film journalists.
With that out of the way, I want to point you towards A THR piece from 12.06.24 that confirmed an internal screening of James Gunn’s “Superman” having recently occurred at Warner Bros. Here’s the excerpt:
We've heard from multiple sources about one screening in particular, on the lot and with [Gunn’s] close-knit crew of people he trusts. We're keeping the buzz about the movie itself in our own Fortress of Solitude, but we can tell you that the movie will be doing a few days of additional shooting in Los Angeles in the near term.
When I first read this, it automatically signaled to me that something odd was happening behind the scenes with “Superman.” It wasn’t the “additional shooting” mention, forget about that, but rather the fact that THR claimed having spoken to multiple folks who had seen the film, but refused to divulge anything about its quality. Why is that? Why not just briefly say that word was good on the film?
Sneider seems to have given us the answer.
He’s hearing from a “rock-solid source” that “Superman,” or at least the cut recently shown on the Warner lot, is “kind of a mess.” That’s the truth, from someone in the know, and right now, Warner is starting to get “nervous” about the film.
I strongly suspect that THR heard the same concerns that Sneider did, but they kept them locked in their “Fortress of Solitude.” Not just that, Sneider claims that he’s “heard a lot more about “Superman,” James Gunn, and DC,” and keeping it all to himself, for now.
Of course, this does not mean “Superman” will turn out to be a bad movie, it’s still seven months away from release, and let’s not forget that “Guardians of the Galaxy” had some pretty bad early buzz, and was believed to be a total dud many months before it hit theaters and became this huge success.
Lest we also forget, “Superman Returns” and “Man of Steel” had great early buzz, and we all know how those two movies turned out. There is still hope for Gunn’s “Superman,” but reporting on a failed screening at the Warner lot is something a journalist should do.