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Superhero Movie

Superhero Movie is a 2008 American superhero parody film written and directed by Craig Mazin, produced by Robert K. Weiss and David Zucker, and starring Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, Kevin Hart, Brent Spiner, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Joy, Regina Hall, Pamela Anderson, and Leslie Nielsen. It was originally titled Superhero! as a nod to one of the Zuckers's previous films, Airplane! (1980), in which Nielsen also starred.

Superhero Movie
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCraig Mazin
Written byCraig Mazin
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyThomas E. Ackerman
Edited by
  • Andrew S. Eisen
  • Craig Herring
  • Daniel Schalk
Music byJames L. Venable
Production
companies
Dimension Films
Craig Mazin Company
Distributed byThe Weinstein Company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • March 28, 2008 (2008-03-28)
Running time
86 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$35 million
Box office$71.2 million

A spoof of the superhero film genre, primarily Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), as well as other lampooned cameos of mid-2000s Marvel film adaptations from 20th Century Fox such as Fantastic 4 (2005) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), the film follows in the footsteps of the Scary Movie series of comedies (2000–present), with which the film's poster shares a resemblance. It was also inspired by, and contains homages to some of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's earlier spoof films such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun (1988–1994).

Production began on September 17, 2007, in Los Angeles. It was released on March 28, 2008, in the United States to generally negative reviews from critics.

Plot

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Rick Riker is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille, and his best friend, Trey. Rick has a crush on Jill Johnson, but she is dating bully Lance Landers. One day, Rick's class goes on a school field trip to an animal research lab run by terminally ill businessman Lou Landers, Lance's uncle. During the trip, Rick accidentally saturates himself in animal-attraction liquid, which causes a group of animals to flock to him, including a chemically enhanced radioactive dragonfly, which bites his neck.

Meanwhile, Lou creates a machine designed to heal illness. Testing it on himself, he gains perfect health at the cost of needing to drain life energy from a victim per day. To avoid arrest for murder, Lou becomes the villain Hourglass. During a science fair, Rick's body changes, which creates a number of mishaps. He later realizes he has developed superpowers from the dragonfly bite. Rick reveals his secret to his uncle and Trey, and an argument starts between him and Albert. The next day, while visiting the bank with Lucille, Rick accidentally allows a bank robber to make off with stolen cash. The robber then shoots and injures Albert.

Charles Xavier contacts Rick and introduces his school for mutants, where Mrs. Xavier tells him to make a costume to be a superhero. At home, Rick creates a superhero costume and dubs himself The Dragonfly. The Dragonfly starts watching over the city and fighting crime, quickly becoming a media sensation despite being unable to fly. Later, Dragonfly attempts to stop Hourglass from robbing a warehouse full of "ceryllium" as part of his evil plan but fails, allowing Hourglass to escape.

Later that night, Jill is attacked by thieves, but The Dragonfly saves her and they share a kiss. Meanwhile, Lou plans to construct a machine that will kill people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. Later that night, Lou and Lance have dinner with Rick's family and Jill, but Lou secretly learns of Rick's true identity when he notices the same injuries on Rick as on The Dragonfly. Making up an awkward excuse, he and Lance leave. Lou returns minutes later as Hourglass and kills Aunt Lucille. Albert awakens from his coma and learns about her death by his moronic doctor. After her funeral, Jill meets Rick and offers to begin a relationship with him. However, Rick fears for her safety, and rejects Jill, leaving her hurt and furious.

Rick decides to end his superhero career, but knowing that Hourglass would head to an awards ceremony to kill thousands of people, he gets Albert to take him there. At the ceremony, Lou tells Rick the Dalai Lama is Hourglass, causing The Dragonfly to assault the Dalai Lama, causing chaos. Meanwhile, Jill discovers that Lou is Hourglass. When Hourglass clashes with Dragonfly on a rooftop, he activates his machine. Dragonfly manages to destroy both the machine and the Hourglass with his own bomb.

The explosion throws Jill off the roof and The Dragonfly dives after her, eventually growing wings and flies. Jill learns that Rick is The Dragonfly due to a family ring he wears being exposed through a hole in his glove and the two begin a relationship. After being thanked for saving the city, Rick flies away with Jill, but the two are unexpectedly rammed by a passing helicopter.

Cast

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Production

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The film was initially slated for theatrical release on February 9, 2007, as Superhero! under the direction of David Zucker.[2] However, it was delayed, and the film later began production on September 17, 2007, in New York, and the director's chair was shifted to Craig Mazin, with Zucker being pushed back to being a producer.[3][4] Though the film was produced in New York, the flyover scenes used as transitions in the film use footage of the business district in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

Zucker said the film primarily parodied Spider-Man and Batman Begins, but it also spoofed X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Superman. The producer elaborated, "It's a spoof of the whole superhero genre, but this one probably has more of a unified plot, like The Naked Gun had."[5]

Release

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Critical response

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Superhero Movie received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 16% based on 51 reviews with an average rating of 3.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Superhero Movie is not the worst of the spoof genre, but relies on tired gags and lame pop culture references all the same."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[8]

Box office performance

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On its opening weekend, the film grossed $9,510,297 in 2,960 theaters averaging to about $3,212 per venue and ranked No. 3 at the box office. It has grossed $25,881,068 in North America, and $45,285,554 internationally for a total of $71,166,622 in worldwide box office receipts.

DVD release

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Superhero Movie was released on DVD July 8, 2008. It was released in the rated PG-13 theatrical version (75 min.) and the extended edition (81 minutes). The extended DVD features commentary by Zucker, Weiss, and Mazin, deleted scenes, and an alternate ending. There is also a Blockbuster Exclusive version of the Film which is the PG-13 version with the bonus features on the Unrated version and even more deleted scenes.

  • Audio commentary by writer/director Craig Mazin and producers David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss — Extended Version Only
  • Deleted scenes
  • Alternate ending
  • Meet the Cast featurette
  • The Art of Spoofing featurette
  • Theatrical trailer

The European (Region 2) DVD has 15 certificate and has all the features of the Extended Region 1 version.

Music

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Sara Paxton performed the song heard during the credits, titled "I Need A Hero", which she also wrote with Michael Jay and Johnny Pedersen.

Superhero! Song

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"Superhero! Song"
 
Promotional single by Drake Bell
ReleasedApril 8, 2008 (Digital download)
Recorded2007–2008
GenrePop rock
Length3:14
LabelUniversal Republic
Songwriter(s)Drake Bell, Michael Corcoran
Producer(s)Backhouse Mike

Star of the film Drake Bell composed (along with Michael Corcoran) and recorded a song for the movie entitled "Superhero! Song" during the movie's post-production. Co-star Sara Paxton provided backup vocals for the song. This song can be heard in the credits of the movie, however it is credited as being titled "Superbounce". It originally appeared on Bell's Myspace Music page. It was released in iTunes Store as a digital downloadable single on April 8, 2008.

Track listing

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No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Superhero! Song"Drake Bell, Michael Corcoran3:14

Parody targets

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The film parodies the entire superhero genre but is mainly a direct parody of Spider-Man and Batman Begins.[5] However, the film also features some spoofs of the 20th Century Fox X-Men characters, and the Fantastic Four, and some members of both teams are featured in the film.

The film also makes references to other films such as when Rick Riker and Trey are in a bus and Trey is pointing out the different groups of cliques, this parodies the Mean Girls scene where Janis explains to Cady the cliques.[citation needed] One of the cliques is "Frodos" – kids dressed up as Hobbits looking similar to Frodo, The Lord of the Rings character.[citation needed]

The film also makes fun of certain celebrities and their real-life actions such as Tom Cruise's Scientology video and Barry Bonds' alleged use of steroids. It also makes fun of British scientist Stephen Hawking.[9]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Superhero Movie (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. April 2, 2008. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  2. ^ Sarah Levinson-Rothman (April 16, 2006). "'Scary Movie 4' Sets Box Office Record". PR Newswire.
  3. ^ Dave McNary (September 19, 2007). "Dimension casts 'Super' spoof". Variety. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  4. ^ Gina Piccalo (September 20, 2007). "Superheroes to get a sendup". Los Angeles Times.
  5. ^ a b Anthony Breznican; Robert Bianco; Mike Snider (February 7, 2008). "Coming attractions: Superheroes get spoofed in 'Movie'". USA Today. Retrieved February 8, 2008.
  6. ^ "Superhero Movie". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved October 6, 2021.  
  7. ^ "Superhero Movie (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 29, 2008.
  8. ^ "Cinemascore". cinemascore.com.
  9. ^ Brian Orndorf (March 28, 2008). "THIS IS BRIANDOM: Film Review: Superhero Movie". brianorndorf.com. Retrieved March 29, 2008.
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