The Christopher Reeve documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story was one of the hits of this year’s Sundance film festival, and Warner Bros. Discovery has bagged the streaming rights in a deal worth a reported $15 million, according to Variety. The deal is precedent-setting for a Sundance documentary launch and likely means that the documentary will stream on Max.
It’s been a good year for Sundance documentaries: Will Ferrell’s road trip with his trans friend, Will & Harper, has also generated serious buzz after it was greeted with tears and a standing ovation at the festival. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story has been similarly well received, and by all accounts it’s very emotional.
The documentary features home movies we’ve never seen before as well as extensive selections from Reeves’ own archives as it tells the story of how Reeves became an iconic movie hero and then suffered a terrible accident that left him reliant on a ventilator.
Why Super/Man’s home planet is likely to be Max
Deadline says that part of Max’s pitch is that it already owns the original 1978 Superman film, directed by Richard Donner, and that “would make the film a glove fit for the studio” – and there’s more synergy in the form of the imminent Superman revamp Superman: Legacy, which is coming next year.
The documentary has already received lots of glowing reviews. Writing in Variety, Owen Glieberman says it’s both superbly made and supremely moving; “the documentary fills in his life with an absorbing richness… There’s an incredible drama to the story of how he recovered from the cataclysm, learning to breathe and talk and, more than that, rehabilitating his life”.
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter says it’s a “deeply affecting film… rich in evidence of hope and kindness, gratitude and the resilience of the human spirit”, and Time Out says that “The Man of Steel gets the documentary he deserves, 20 years after his death… it’s an intensely moving experience.”
Although the biopic will likely be a tearjerker, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story sounds like it’s going to be a must-watch when it comes to the best streaming service later this year.
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