After decades of trying to defeat his nemesis, a dying Lex Luthor finally discovers Superman’s best kept secret, and unleashes a sinister plan to bring the last son of Krypton to his knees. But can Luthor’s masterstroke truly break the man of steel?
A WORD FROM CHRIS
First I would like to thank everybody who helped me make this movie, specifically to everyone who contributed via my gofundme. Without your help, this would never have happened.
A lot went into making this particular short. Scheduling, costuming and location availability really played a major part. If I did not have the available resources that I had at the time, this movie would’ve turned out like crap. Though, this whole thing literally started when I received Ken Wood’s headshot submission for a completely different casting. His resemblance to Christopher Reeve is uncanny, and I knew I had to make a Superman short with him. So I emailed him and asked if he would be interested. In case you’re wondering, he was indeed very interested.
I had Ken read a few scenes from an unmade Superman script for his audition. After he was cast, I began my quest. The goal was to make a modern day Superman short based on Reeve’s Superman. So I got to thinking and quickly came up with an idea.
Once I had a script, I began looking for the rest of my cast. A good Lex Luthor is actually pretty hard to find, especially one that resembles Gene Hackman. And while Paul Zawadsky doesn’t exactly look or sound like Mr. Hackman, he sure as hell made up for it with his performance. Paul chewed more scenery, than almost any actor I’ve ever worked with. It was a true delight.
If you’ve read this far, then you know a certain someone appears in this movie. This appearance was a total linchpin. I knew if I could not get the right costume, then the whole thing would fall apart and look stupid. Thankfully, after a vigorous instagram search, I stumbled upon Matt Paynton and his amazing suit. After a brief exchange, Matt agreed to fly out for the weekend and film with me, and that’s all she wrote. I now had my cast.
Filming took place over the course of a day and half. My executive producer Michael Terraso rented an executive suite at a fancy hotel for us to do the bulk of the filming in. The real trick was making one tiny location look like two, but I think I managed to pull it off.
I knew going into this that I wanted to use familiar themes, but nothing that was tired or overused by every other fan film, so I did a lot of mixing, and looked for a lot of covers of themes. I wanted people to recognize certain thematic motifs, but I still wanted things to feel current.
I am extremely proud of this one, the production value is definitely some of my best and just being able to get two of my favorite superheroes to stand shoulder to shoulder in all their glory was a childhood dream come true.
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