2006 Movie News Archives

World Premiere

June 22, 2006: “Superman Returns” World Premiere Report

By Jeffrey Bridges

Folks, for as amazing as the press junket for "Superman Returns" was, the world premiere blew it out of the water. It's hard to try and explain what it was like, so let me try and set the scene.

It was like dying and going to Superman heaven.

There were hundreds of staff members, all of whom had Superman shirts on. There were television cameras and reporters everywhere, and a good portion of them had Superman shirts on, too. There were movie posters and promo shots covering everything, and a Superman Returns Hummer was parked outside the theater. Streets were shut down and were packed with people everywhere you looked. Large flat screen televisions were mounted on stands and swiveled in different directions to let everyone see what was going on. At the far end of the carpet was a huge video wall that displayed the footage of stars arriving and getting interviewed.

Loudspeakers blared the main title (and a few other selections) from the soundtrack as stars arrived in limos and exited to screams and cheers. Immediately after exiting their limos, there was an area for the stars to mingle and talk a little. Kate Bosworth spotted Sam Huntington and they both smiled and hugged each other. Dean Cain made his way through the crowd, waving to fans with Michael Rosenbaum. Some fans were lucky enough to station themselves right next to the ropes in this area and were able to get autographs and photos.

After a few moments spent hanging out with each other the stars made their way to the major entertainment news outlets (like "Entertainment Tonight" and "E!"), doing televised interviews as the fans cheered for them.

Click "Read More" below to read Jeffrey's complete report, view some of his photos, and check out reports and videos from other media sources.

From there they would each slowly advance over to the photographers, which were lined up in a long row. Flash bulbs lit up the sky in a constant barrage of light as the stars waved to and chatted with fans. A large section of bleachers was set up above the photographers, which sat 300 people across one row and went maybe 8 - 10 rows up. The bleachers were FILLED to the brim, ever person in them in Superman shirts and hats and costumes, holding signs and waving posters as they tried to get the attention of their favorite stars.

A few staff members stood at the bottom of the bleachers, throwing special Superman Returns World Premiere T-shirts and DVDs up to them, and there were also some very nice televisions given away (36" flat screens, I believe).

After the photographers the stars stopped beneath the video wall to chat with LA radio station KIIS 102.7 FM. These interviews were on mic and piped over the loudspeakers to the crowd, and televised up on the big video wall.

The red carpet (though it was actually a light blue/gray) was shaped like a "U". So if the starts exited their limos at the left tip of the letter, the video wall was at the bottom of the curve. So from there they went down a long, long line of reporters and cameras, stopping for as long as they could (or their publicists would allow them) to answer questions before moving on to the next person or group of people that their publicist directed them to.

Press Pass It is in this throng of bodies and technology that my assistant Dragonblink and I were stationed. We had obtained our official press passes and had an assigned spot. Unfortunately we were quite near the end of the line (closest to the doors of the theaters), so not everyone made it down to us. Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth never came down our side of the carpet at all, and many other stars were rushed past as people tried to hurry them into the theater.

We were, however, able to obtain interviews with producer Chris Lee (who recognized the site, and Steve, by name and thanked us for all of our coverage of the movie), Sam Huntington, Stephan Bender, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh.

To their credit, after all the photographers and fans had already left and the carpet and assorted paraphernalia was being disassembled and the movie had started, Bryan and Brandon were still out there giving interviews and stopping with as many people as they could, which was incredibly generous of them.

Brandon was led to a group just to the left of us, and then to a group just to the right. As he passed by he noticed the tag that said "Superman Homepage" and turned around upon recognizing the name. He stopped long enough to let me ask him a question before he had to move on, even though he wasn't supposed to stop there at all. In all things Brandon has come off as an incredibly nice and classy individual, and this just reaffirmed that. Clearly the fans are important enough to him that he wanted to make sure he at least stopped to talk to SupermanHomepage.

Posterboard Behind the velvet rope that separated the press from the stars on the carpet was a barrier of sorts, and taped all along the barrier were large boards with the Superman Returns posters on them. These boards were being taken off and thrown away, so I took the one we were standing behind home with me. In the upper right-hand corner you can see the bottom of the sticker that marked the official spot for SupermanHomepage.com on the red carpet.

The video file is being edited as I write this, and we hope to have it up for you to see sometime this coming weekend.

Jeffrey Bridges

Last night's world premiere of "Superman Returns" in L.A. was covered by many other media outlets. Here are the ones we've located so far...

KCCI.com from Brandon's home town of Iowa posted an article and video with quotes from Brandon's uncle Rodger...

    "Just watching Brandon conduct himself, we're just real proud of the way he represented himself, our family and central Iowa," his uncle said.

KCCI.com has also posted an MP3 audio report from the world premiere.

Reuters has posted a video and pull-quotes from interviews on the red carpet.

ABC News has an online video from the world premiere as well.

Be sure to check back over the weekend for Jeffrey's video interviews from the World Premiere of "Superman Returns".

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Photos courtesy of Devoted Fans Network, where you can view even more great photos from the world premiere.

Ayaz Sami sent in the following photos taken from the elevated bleachers at the world premiere:

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2006 Movie News

Listed below are all the Movie News items archived for 2006 organized into various categories:

“Superman Returns” Movie News:

Christopher Reeve Movie News: Hollywoodland (George Reeves) Movie News: Direct-to-DVD Animated Movie News: Other Movie News:

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