Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story will be released in Ireland on 1st November 2024 by Warner Bros. Pictures. This week, our man of the movies Clint Drieberg chats to the director and featuring family members, all about the extraordinary life of Christopher Reeve, or as many know him – the original Superman.
Reeve was injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He subsequently became a steadfast campaigner for disability rights, co-founding the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and contributing greatly to what is now named the ‘Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation’. As of 2020, all three of Christopher Reeve’s children serve on the foundation’s board of directors. They are television reporter and anchor Will Reeve, film producer and director Matthew Reeve, and lawyer Alexandra Reeve Givens. Super/Man, the moving new documentary from directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, contains the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children about their father, and Radio Nova’s own Clint Drieberg got to sit down with the Reeves and discuss what the film means to them.
Prior to the life-altering accident, Reeve had a varied and successful career spanning 30+ years, becoming most famous for his role as Superman in the 1978-1987 TV series of the same name. He continued his career both in front of and behind the camera up until his death in 2004.
New York-based production studio Words + Pictures financed and also produced the film. Words + Pictures, founded in 2021 by Connor Schell, is led by the creators and producers of the 30 for 30 series, the Emmy Award-winning The Last Dance, and the 2017 Oscar-winning O.J.: Made in America.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is produced by Passion Pictures (Searching For Sugar Man, The Territory) and Misfits Entertainment (McQueen, Rising Phoenix). It includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as interviews with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. The film is a moving and vivid cinematic telling of Reeve’s remarkable story.
