Superman: Man of Tomorrow

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Superman: Man of Tomorrow
Theatrical release poster
Directed byZack Snyder
Written byDavid S. Goyer
Story by
Based on
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyAmir Mokri
Edited byDavid Brenner
Music byHans Zimmer
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
  • June 10, 2013 (2013-06-10) (Los Angeles)
  • June 21, 2013 (2013-06-21) (United States)
Running time
148 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$245 million
Box office$921 million

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is a 2013 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Superman. Produced by Goodwin Studios, DC Entertainment, Atlas Motion Pictures, and Cruel and Unusual Films, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the sequel to Superman: Last Son (2007), the seventh film in the United Cinematic Universe (UCU), and the first film of Phase Two. The film was directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S. Goyer, from a story by Goyer and Freddie Goodwin. It stars David Corenswet as Clark Kent / Superman, alongside Rachel Brosnahan, Michael Fassbender, Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne, Viola Davis, and Ralph Fiennes. In the film, Superman becomes the subject of global political debate after the Battle of New York in The United (2012), while the alien artificial intelligence Brainiac arrives on Earth after detecting Kryptonian and Tesseract energy signatures.

Development of a sequel to Superman: Last Son began after that film's release, but the project was delayed while Goodwin Studios focused on expanding the UCU through Iron Man: Armored Dawn (2008), Batman: Gotham Knight (2008), Wonder Woman: Themyscira (2009), Spider-Man: Web of Tomorrow (2010), The Flash: Velocity (2010), Captain America: Sentinel (2011), and The United. Following the commercial success of The United, Goodwin Studios chose the Superman sequel to open Phase Two because the character's public role after the New York battle allowed the studio to explore the consequences of a world that had accepted superheroes but not yet agreed how to govern or trust them. Snyder, Goyer, Corenswet, Brosnahan, Reddick, Fishburne, and Zimmer returned from Last Son, while Fassbender and Fiennes joined the cast as Lex Luthor and Brainiac, respectively. Filming began in September 2012 and took place in Vancouver, Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow premiered in Los Angeles on June 10, 2013, and was released in the United States on June 21, as the first film in Phase Two of the UCU. The film grossed $921 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Corenswet's performance, Zimmer's score, the film's visual scale, and its treatment of Superman's public symbolism, though some criticized its length and dense franchise setup. A sequel, Superman: Worldbreaker, was released in 2013.

Plot[edit | edit source]

One year after the Battle of New York, Clark Kent continues operating publicly as Superman while working as a reporter for the Daily Planet in Metropolis. His role in the battle has made him a global symbol, but it has also intensified public debate over whether an alien with his power should operate without oversight. While Lois Lane investigates a series of classified government contracts tied to alien defense systems, Amanda Waller begins compiling contingency files on Superman and other members of the United, arguing that the world cannot rely on trust alone after witnessing an interdimensional invasion.

An object enters the solar system and begins silently disabling satellites, military probes, and deep-space monitoring systems. At S.T.A.R. Labs, Dr. Emil Hamilton traces the disruptions to an artificial intelligence that is scanning Earth for Kryptonian genetic signatures and residual energy from the Tesseract portal. Superman intercepts one of the probes above the Arctic and discovers that it contains fragments of Kryptonian language. The probe activates and identifies him as Kal-El before transmitting his location to a larger vessel hidden beyond the Moon.

Lex Luthor, the founder of LuthorCorp, uses the growing panic to present himself as a rational human counterweight to Superman. He argues that Earth cannot depend on one alien's morality and proposes a network of privately built defense systems capable of detecting, studying, and neutralizing extraterrestrial threats. Lois discovers that LuthorCorp has been receiving restricted data from military contractors and that Luthor has obtained fragments of alien technology recovered from the Battle of New York. Luthor publicly denies any wrongdoing, claiming that he is preparing humanity for the next invasion while Superman is asking the world to depend on faith.

The alien intelligence, Brainiac, arrives in orbit and projects itself into Earth's communications systems. It identifies itself as a preservation program created to collect knowledge from endangered civilizations. Brainiac states that Krypton was lost because its leaders refused to surrender their knowledge to rational preservation, and it now intends to catalogue Earth because the planet has become a convergence point for Kryptonian, human, divine, and extradimensional energies. Brainiac's first attack immobilizes major cities by seizing power grids and transportation systems, forcing Superman to divide his efforts between saving civilians and confronting the ship.

Waller authorizes a joint military and LuthorCorp response, but Luthor secretly uses the crisis to test weapons powered by alien energy. The weapons briefly injure Superman, confirming Luthor's theory that Kryptonian biology can be disrupted by specific radiation frequencies. Brainiac observes the exchange and concludes that humanity is already studying methods to kill its own protectors. It captures Metropolis inside a containment field and begins extracting architectural, biological, and linguistic data from the city, intending to miniaturize and preserve it before erasing the rest of Earth's unstable variables.

Superman enters Brainiac's ship with Lois and Hamilton's help. Inside, he discovers preserved fragments of destroyed worlds, including a partial Kryptonian archive. Brainiac shows him simulations of Krypton's collapse and argues that individual choice is inferior to perfect preservation. Superman rejects Brainiac's logic, insisting that life cannot be saved by removing freedom from it. Meanwhile, Lois exposes Luthor's unauthorized weapons program through the Daily Planet, causing public backlash but also revealing that several governments had quietly funded similar research after the Battle of New York.

Brainiac turns Luthor's defense network against Metropolis, using its human-built systems to accelerate the city's extraction. Superman fights through the ship's drones while Lois and Hamilton overload the containment field from within the city. Luthor, realizing Brainiac will erase the human power structures he intended to dominate, reluctantly helps disable the network, but he preserves enough data to continue his own anti-Superman research. Superman destroys Brainiac's central processing core by carrying it into the upper atmosphere and exposing it to conflicting solar and Tesseract radiation, freeing Metropolis and forcing the remaining ship fragments to retreat into space.

In the aftermath, Superman addresses the world through an interview with Lois, acknowledging that fear of his power is understandable but arguing that accountability cannot be built on secrecy and preemptive violence. Luthor avoids prosecution by claiming that his weapons prevented further casualties, though Lois continues investigating him. Waller watches footage of Superman destroying Brainiac and adds Kryptonian countermeasures to a file labeled "Contingency: Last Son". In a mid-credits scene, a damaged Brainiac fragment activates inside a LuthorCorp vault. In a post-credits scene, Waller receives a report that Victor von Doom has requested access to alien-defense research recovered from the Metropolis incident.

Cast[edit | edit source]

  • David Corenswet as Clark Kent / Superman: A Kryptonian survivor raised on Earth who works as a reporter for the Daily Planet and acts publicly as Superman. Corenswet described the film as being about Clark learning that being accepted as a hero is not the same as being understood by the world.[1]
  • Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane: An investigative reporter for the Daily Planet and Clark's closest confidante. Brosnahan said Lois's role in the film was to challenge both Superman and the institutions attempting to define him.[1]
  • Michael Fassbender as Lex Luthor: The founder of LuthorCorp, who presents himself as a humanist industrialist and argues that Earth must prepare defenses against alien power.[2]
  • Lance Reddick as General Calvin Swanwick: A senior military official who distrusts Superman but becomes increasingly concerned by Luthor's private weapons program.[1]
  • Laurence Fishburne as Perry White: The editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet, who pushes Lois to prove Luthor's corruption before publishing her allegations.[1]
  • Viola Davis as Amanda Waller: A government official who begins formalizing contingency planning for metahumans and extraterrestrial beings after the Battle of New York.[1]
  • Ralph Fiennes as the voice of Brainiac: An alien artificial intelligence that preserves civilizations by extracting and controlling their knowledge.[3]
  • Richard Schiff as Dr. Emil Hamilton: A S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who assists Superman and Lois in studying Brainiac's technology.[1]
  • Rebecca Buller as Jenny Jurwich: A Daily Planet reporter who assists Lois during the Metropolis evacuation.[1]
  • Harry Lennix as Lieutenant General Marcus Lane: A military adviser involved in the government's alien-defense response.[1]
  • Dylan Sprayberry as a young Clark Kent, appearing in flashbacks to Clark's childhood and Jonathan Kent's warnings about public fear.[1]

Russell Crowe reprises his role as Jor-El through archival Kryptonian projections, while Diane Lane appears as Martha Kent. Samuel L. Jackson makes an uncredited cameo as Nick Fury in a government briefing sequence, and Cillian Murphy appears in the post-credits scene as Victor von Doom through a silent holographic transmission.[1]

Production[edit | edit source]

Development[edit | edit source]

Superman: Last Son was released in 2007 as the first film of the United Cinematic Universe, and Goodwin Studios began considering a sequel shortly after its commercial success.[4] Early sequel concepts focused on Lex Luthor, Metallo, and the political consequences of Superman's emergence, but Goodwin Studios delayed the film while developing other Phase One entries and building toward The United.[4] Freddie Goodwin later said the studio intentionally avoided rushing the sequel because it wanted Superman's second solo film to feel affected by the larger world rather than simply repeat the first film's origin structure.[5]

By 2011, the studio had settled on Brainiac as the primary antagonist. Goyer said Brainiac allowed the sequel to connect Superman's Kryptonian history to Earth's new status as a planet visible to cosmic and extradimensional forces after the events of The United.[6] Goodwin Studios considered using Brainiac in a more traditional invasion story, but Snyder argued that the character should be treated as a collector and archivist rather than a conventional conqueror.[6]

After The United became a major box-office success in 2012, Goodwin Studios officially positioned Superman: Man of Tomorrow as the opening film of Phase Two.[5] Goodwin said Superman was chosen to open the phase because his visibility made him the clearest way to examine the world's reaction to the United. Unlike Batman, Spider-Man, or the Flash, Superman could not easily hide his existence or operate only at a local level.

Snyder returned to direct after meeting with Goodwin, Deborah Snyder, and Warner Bros. executives in early 2012.[7] Goyer returned to write the screenplay, though Goodwin contributed to the story and UCU continuity group reviewed the script for connections to The United, Batman: Gotham Knight, Iron Man: Armored Dawn, and future Phase Two films.[8] Whedon, who had signed to write and direct The United: Age of Doom, also read drafts and suggested that the film's political debate should not resolve too neatly because distrust of heroes would become a major thread in Phase Two.

Writing[edit | edit source]

Goyer said the central question of the film was whether Superman's goodness would be enough for a world that had just seen how dangerous extraordinary beings could be. The screenplay contrasts Superman, Luthor, Waller, and Brainiac as four different responses to fear. Superman believes trust must be earned through action, Luthor believes humanity must control its own defenses, Waller believes every powerful being requires a contingency, and Brainiac believes civilization is safest when preserved under perfect control.[9]

The writers avoided making Luthor the main physical villain because they wanted him to be introduced as a long-term ideological threat. Goyer said Luthor was written as someone who could sound reasonable in a post-New York world, especially to governments that had just witnessed an alien army attack Earth. Fassbender's Luthor was therefore presented as public, articulate, and patriotic, with his illegal weapons program emerging from the same fear he expresses openly.

Brainiac's dialogue was written to avoid emotional villainy. Snyder said the character should never sound angry because anger would make him feel too human. Instead, Brainiac speaks as though he is correcting errors in a system. Fiennes recorded early test lines before filming began, and Snyder played portions of his performance on set to help actors react to Brainiac's presence even when the character would later be created through visual effects.[3]

The film originally included a longer subplot involving military pressure to place Superman under United Nations authority, but the subplot was reduced during editing to focus more on LuthorCorp and Brainiac. Another deleted sequence showed Bruce Wayne watching the Metropolis attack from the Batcave, but Goodwin Studios removed it to avoid making the film feel like a direct crossover too early in Phase Two.

Casting[edit | edit source]

Corenswet signed a multi-film agreement when he was cast in Superman: Last Son, and his return for the sequel was expected. He said the sequel required him to play Clark as more experienced but also more isolated because the world now sees Superman as a political reality rather than a mysterious savior.[1] Brosnahan also returned as Lois Lane, with the writers expanding her investigative role so that the human response to Superman could be seen through journalism rather than only government briefings.

Fassbender was cast as Luthor in September 2012.[2] Goodwin Studios had considered several actors for the role but wanted someone who could present Luthor as charismatic and dangerous without immediately playing him as openly villainous. Fassbender said he approached Luthor as someone who believes he is protecting human agency from mythological and alien dependency.

Fiennes was announced as the voice of Brainiac in October 2012.[3] Snyder said Fiennes's voice gave Brainiac a detached intelligence that made the character more unsettling than a conventional invader. The visual effects team used Fiennes's facial movement and cadence as reference for Brainiac's holographic projections, though the final character was not designed as a direct likeness of the actor.

Davis joined the film after appearing in The United, where Waller's contingency planning was teased. Her role in Man of Tomorrow was designed to connect the film to the larger Phase Two debate over oversight. Reddick, Fishburne, Schiff, Lane, and Crowe returned from Last Son, while Lennix joined as General Marcus Lane.[1]

Design[edit | edit source]

Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos returned from Superman: Last Son and worked with Snyder to create a visual contrast between Metropolis, LuthorCorp, and Brainiac's ship. Metropolis was designed to appear brighter and more rebuilt than it had in Last Son, reflecting Superman's public presence and the city's confidence before Brainiac's arrival. LuthorCorp interiors were built with glass, white stone, and vertical lines to suggest human ambition disguised as civic responsibility.

Brainiac's ship was designed as a moving archive rather than a warship. Concept artists developed chambers containing fragments of preserved cities, biological samples, artificial ecosystems, and language matrices. Snyder said the ship needed to feel like a museum that murders planets by loving them incorrectly. Kryptonian elements from Last Son were incorporated into parts of the ship, but Brainiac's technology was made colder and more modular to distinguish it from Superman's heritage.[10]

Costume designer Michael Wilkinson updated Superman's suit with slightly brighter blue and red tones than the previous film, explaining that the change reflected Clark's more public role. The suit retained the textured Kryptonian pattern from Last Son but added subtle metallic threading intended to catch sunlight more strongly during flight sequences. Luthor's wardrobe was designed around controlled wealth, with clean suits and minimal color contrast, while Waller's costumes used dark government silhouettes.

Filming[edit | edit source]

Principal photography began on September 20, 2012, in Vancouver under the working title Tomorrow.[11] Vancouver stood in for portions of Metropolis, while Chicago and New York City were used for street-level exteriors and skyline photography.[12] Snyder said the production used more real urban photography than Last Son because the sequel was about Superman living in a world that had become aware of him.

Filming in Chicago included sequences of Superman rescuing civilians during Brainiac's first attack and scenes of LuthorCorp's public demonstration of alien-defense technology. New York City filming included exterior shots of the Daily Planet and scenes connecting the film to the aftermath of the Battle of New York. Los Angeles soundstages were used for Brainiac ship interiors, S.T.A.R. Labs sets, and Waller's briefing rooms.

Corenswet performed portions of the flying work using wire rigs and motion-control rigs, with digital doubles used for high-speed and upper-atmosphere sequences. Snyder worked with stunt coordinator Damon Caro to make Superman's fights against Brainiac drones feel different from human combat. Caro said the drones were designed to attack with mathematical precision rather than aggression, forcing Superman to react to patterns instead of emotion.

Filming concluded in February 2013.[13] Additional photography took place in March and April 2013, primarily to clarify Luthor's relationship to the alien-defense program and to add Waller's mid-credits scene.

Visual effects[edit | edit source]

The visual effects were produced by Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative, Scanline VFX, and Method Studios.[10] The film contained over 1,700 visual effects shots, including Superman's flight sequences, Brainiac's drones, the containment field around Metropolis, and the interior of Brainiac's ship.

Weta Digital handled most of Brainiac's ship interiors and preserved-world environments. ILM created Brainiac's drone attacks and several Superman flight sequences, while Double Negative worked on city-scale destruction and containment-field effects. Scanline produced the upper-atmosphere climax, in which Superman destroys Brainiac's core using solar and Tesseract radiation.

Brainiac's final design combined a humanoid holographic projection with mechanical avatars. Snyder said the goal was to avoid making Brainiac either a simple robot or a fully human villain. The projection could appear calm and almost angelic, while the drones and physical interfaces showed the violence behind the preservation logic.

Music[edit | edit source]

Hans Zimmer returned to compose the score after working on Superman: Last Son.[14] Zimmer said the sequel required a more confident version of Superman's theme but also a colder musical language for Brainiac and Luthor. The score uses brass and percussion for Superman's public heroism, processed strings and digital pulses for Brainiac, and restrained piano and low synth patterns for Luthor.

The soundtrack album, Superman: Man of Tomorrow (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), was released by Hollywood Records and Goodwin Music on June 18, 2013. A deluxe edition containing additional cues and the concert suite "Tomorrow's Sun" was released digitally on October 1, 2013, alongside the film's digital home-media release.

Marketing[edit | edit source]

The first teaser for Superman: Man of Tomorrow was released in December 2012 and emphasized the world's divided reaction to Superman after the Battle of New York.[15] The teaser included voiceovers from Lois, Luthor, Waller, and Brainiac, but did not fully reveal Brainiac's design. A full trailer was released during the Super Bowl in February 2013, showing Brainiac's ship, LuthorCorp's defense network, and Superman entering the alien archive.

Warner Bros. and Goodwin Studios launched an in-universe viral campaign centered on LuthorCorp's "Human Tomorrow" initiative. The campaign included fictional press releases, defense-technology demonstrations, and a website asking whether Earth should rely on alien protection. Goodwin said the campaign was designed to make Luthor's argument visible before audiences saw the film, allowing the character to enter the story with an already established public voice.

Tie-in merchandise included action figures, Lego sets, statues, apparel, and replicas of Brainiac drones and LuthorCorp security badges. DC Comics and Goodwin Studios also released a two-issue prelude comic that followed Lois's investigation into alien-defense contractors before the events of the film.

Release[edit | edit source]

Theatrical[edit | edit source]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on June 10, 2013.[16] It was released in several international markets beginning June 19 and in the United States on June 21, 2013. The film was released in 2D, 3D, IMAX 3D, and premium large formats. It was the first film of Phase Two of the UCU.[5]

Home media[edit | edit source]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on digital download on October 1, 2013, and on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and UltraViolet on October 22.[17] The release includes deleted scenes, commentary by Snyder and Goyer, featurettes on Brainiac's design, LuthorCorp's viral campaign, and the United One-Shot The Last Son Report. The film was also included in the United Cinematic Universe – Phase Two: Consequence box set released on December 8, 2015.

Reception[edit | edit source]

Box office[edit | edit source]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow grossed $352.1 million in the United States and Canada and $568.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $921 million.[18] It was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2013 and the highest-grossing Superman solo film in the UCU at the time of release.

In the United States and Canada, the film opened alongside several wide releases and was projected to gross between $120 million and $140 million in its opening weekend. It earned $54.7 million on its first day, including Thursday night previews, and debuted to $132.4 million, finishing first at the box office. The film remained in the top five for four weekends and crossed $300 million domestically in its sixth week.

Internationally, the film performed strongly in the United Kingdom, China, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and South Korea. Analysts credited the film's global performance to Superman's role in The United, the marketing emphasis on Brainiac, and the appeal of the UCU's first post-United chapter.

Critical response[edit | edit source]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Superman: Man of Tomorrow has an approval rating of 79% based on 361 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10.[19] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported an overall positive score of 87%.[21]

Critics praised Corenswet's performance and the film's effort to place Superman in a politically complicated post-United world. Several reviewers said the film successfully avoided repeating the origin structure of Last Son by making Superman's public meaning the center of the story. Brosnahan's Lois Lane and Fassbender's Luthor were also praised, with reviewers highlighting the film's use of journalism and corporate rhetoric to frame the conflict.

Some criticism focused on the film's length, dense continuity references, and amount of setup for future Phase Two storylines. Several reviewers felt that Waller and Doom references were effective as franchise connective tissue but occasionally distracted from the central Superman-Brainiac conflict. Brainiac's portrayal was generally praised, though some critics argued that the character's detached personality made him intellectually interesting but emotionally distant.

Accolades[edit | edit source]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow received nominations for visual effects, sound editing, and score at several genre and technical awards ceremonies.[22] Zimmer's score and the film's visual effects work on Brainiac's ship were particularly recognized by critics' groups and fan-voted awards.

Accolades received by Superman: Man of Tomorrow
Award Category Recipient(s) Result
Saturn Awards Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture Superman: Man of Tomorrow Nominated
Visual Effects Society Awards Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative Nominated
Annie Awards Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects in a Live Action Production Brainiac archive sequence Nominated
Grammy Awards Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Hans Zimmer Nominated

Themes and analysis[edit | edit source]

Commentators described Superman: Man of Tomorrow as a film about public trust after catastrophe. While Superman: Last Son focused on Clark accepting his identity, Man of Tomorrow examines what happens when that identity becomes a political fact. Superman is no longer simply deciding whether to reveal himself; the world is deciding what his revelation means.[9]

The film contrasts four forms of protection. Superman protects through personal responsibility, Lois protects through truth, Luthor protects through control, and Brainiac protects through preservation. Waller's presence adds a fifth form: contingency. This structure made the film central to Phase Two because it established the recurring question of whether extraordinary power should be trusted, studied, copied, or restrained.

Brainiac was also analyzed as a distorted mirror of Superman. Both are connected to Krypton's legacy, both arrive as alien forces in human history, and both believe civilizations are worth saving. The difference is that Superman preserves life by defending freedom, while Brainiac preserves knowledge by removing freedom from life.

Future[edit | edit source]

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is followed by Superman's appearance in The United: Age of Doom, where his public role and Waller's contingency planning continue to affect the United. A direct sequel, Superman: Last Light, was released as part of Phase Three and continued Clark's conflict with Luthor, Waller, and Earth's growing fear of alien threats.[23]

Notes[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

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External links[edit | edit source]

Template:United Cinematic Universe Template:United Cinematic Universe Phase Two Template:Superman in film Template:Zack Snyder Template:Portal bar