Man of Steel (film)

Man of Steel is a 2013 American superhero film directed by Zack Snyder, produced by Christopher Nolan, and written by David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Superman, the film is a reboot of the Superman film series that portrays the character's origin story. The film stars Henry Cavill in the title role, with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El.

Development began in 2008 when Warner Bros. Pictures took pitches from comic book writers, screenwriters and directors, opting to reboot the franchise. In 2009, a court ruling resulted in Jerry Siegel's family recapturing the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's copyright. The decision stated that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films, but if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Shuster and Siegel estates would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film. Nolan pitched Goyer's idea after story discussion on The Dark Knight Rises, and Snyder was hired as the film's director in October 2010. Principal photography began in August 2011 in West Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Vancouver and Plano, Illinois. Man of Steel marks the first film in an intended shared fictional cinematic universe with other DC Comics characters.

Man of Steel's red carpet premiere in the U.S. was attended by its principal cast members in New York City on June 10, 2013. The film was released to the general public on June 14, 2013, in conventional, 3D, and IMAX theaters. The film became a box office success, grossing $687,999,518 worldwide, despite a mixed response from critics. Some critics highlighted the film's narrative, acting, visuals and reinvention of the titular character, while others were critical of the film's pacing and lack of character development. A follow-up film featuring Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is slated for release on May 6, 2016, with Snyder returning to direct and most of the first film's main cast reprising their roles.

Plot
The planet Krypton faces imminent destruction due to its unstable core, the result of depleting Krypton's natural resources. The ruling council is deposed by the planet's military commander General Zod and his followers during a coup d'état. Knowing that the use of artificial population control has ruined their civilization, scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara launch their newborn son Kal-El, the first naturally born Kryptonian child in centuries, on a spacecraft to Earth after infusing his cells with a genetic codex of the entire Kryptonian race. After General Zod kills Jor-El, he and his followers are captured and exiled to the Phantom Zone. However, they are indirectly freed after Krypton explodes.

Kal-El's ship lands in Smallville, a small town in Kansas. He is raised as the adopted son of Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark. Clark's Kryptonian physiology affords him superhuman abilities on Earth, which initially cause him confusion and ridicule. He gradually learns to harness his powers and uses them to help others. After revealing to a teenage Clark that he is an alien, Jonathan warns him not to use his powers in public out of concern that he will be rejected by society. After Jonathan's death, an adult Clark spends several years living a nomadic lifestyle, working different jobs under false identities, anonymously performing good deeds, and struggling to cope with the loss of his adoptive father.

Clark eventually infiltrates a U.S. military investigation of a Kryptonian scout spaceship in the Arctic. When Clark enters the alien ship, he uses a Kryptonian "control-key" from the ship that brought him to Earth, which allows him to communicate with the preserved consciousness of Jor-El in the form of a hologram. Jor-El reveals Clark's origins, the extinction of his race, and tells Clark that he was sent to Earth to bring hope to mankind for a better future. Lois Lane, a journalist from the Daily Planet newspaper who was sent to write a story on the discovery, sneaks inside the ship while following Clark and is rescued by him when she is injured by its security system. Lois's editor Perry White rejects her story of a "superhuman" rescuer, so she traces Clark back to Kansas with the intention of writing an exposé. After hearing his story, she decides not to reveal his secret.

Meanwhile, Zod and his crew seek out other worlds that the Kryptonian race colonized long ago, only to find out that none of the outposts survived after Krypton abandoned them. Zod and the others eventually pick up a Kryptonian distress signal sent from the ship Clark discovered on Earth. Zod arrives and demands that the humans surrender Kal-El, whom he believes has the codex, or else Earth will be destroyed. Clark accepts, and the military hand him and Lois over to Zod's second-in-command, Faora, at Zod's request. Zod reveals that he intends to use a terraforming "world engine" to transform Earth into a new Krypton and use the codex to repopulate the planet with genetically-engineered Kryptonians, killing all of Earth's indigenous life in the process. Clark and Lois escape Zod's ship with Jor-El's help, Clark defeats Faora and another Kryptonian, and convinces the military that he is an ally. Zod deploys the world engine and initiates the process in Metropolis and over the southern Indian Ocean, increasing the Earth's mass and atmosphere.

Clark, now called "Superman", destroys the world engine, while the military uses the spacecraft that brought him to Earth in an aerial strike on Zod's ship over Metropolis, sending Zod's forces back into the Phantom Zone. Only Zod remains, and he engages Superman in a destructive battle across Metropolis using his newly developed powers. When Zod attempts to murder cornered civilians as revenge for his defeat, Superman is forced to kill him. Some time later, Superman warns the government that, if it wants his help, it will be on his terms. To create an alias that gives him access to dangerous situations without arousing suspicion, Clark takes a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet.

Cast

 * Henry Cavill as Clark Kent / Kal-El:
 * A Kryptonian whose parents sent him to Earth as an infant to escape the destruction of his homeworld Krypton. He is raised in Smallville, Kansas, by farmers Martha and Jonathan Kent. Raised under the moral guidance of his adoptive parents and inspired by the holographic message from his late father, he becomes Earth's greatest protector. Superman is depicted as being 33 years old, at least from the moment he is found, in the present timeline of the film. Cavill is the first British and non-American actor to play the character. He was previously cast in Superman: Flyby, which was ultimately shelved, and was considered for the role in the 2006 film Superman Returns, but lost out to Brandon Routh.  Cavill stated, "There's a very real story behind the Superman character." He explained that everyone's goal has been to explore the difficulties his character faces as a result of having multiple identities – including his birth name, Kal-El, and his alter ego, Clark Kent. Cavill also stated that, "He's alone and there's no one like him," referring to Superman's vulnerabilities. "That must be incredibly scary and lonely, not to know who you are or what you are, and trying to find out what makes sense. Where's your baseline? What do you draw from? Where do you draw a limit with the power you have? In itself, that's an incredible weakness." In an interview with Total Film magazine, Cavill stated he had been consuming nearly 5,000 calories a day, training for over two hours daily and plowing protein to pack on the muscle mass. Dylan Sprayberry was cast as the 13-year-old Clark Kent, while 11-year-old Cooper Timberline was cast as the 9-year-old Clark Kent.


 * Amy Adams as Lois Lane:
 * Reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper and love interest of Clark Kent. Adams was selected from a list of actresses that included Olivia Wilde and Mila Kunis. "There was a big, giant search for Lois," Snyder said. "For us, it was a big thing and obviously a really important role. We did a lot of auditioning, but we had this meeting with Amy Adams and after that I just felt she was perfect for it." Adams auditioned for the role three times: once for the unproduced Superman: Flyby, and the second time for Superman Returns before landing the current role. Adams was confirmed to play Lois Lane in March 2011. While announcing the role, Snyder said in a statement, "We are excited to announce the casting of Amy Adams, one of the most versatile and respected actresses in films today. Amy has the talent to capture all of the qualities we love about Lois: smart, tough, funny, warm, ambitious and, of course, beautiful." On portraying Lois Lane, Adams stated that the film would feature a Lois Lane who is an "independent, feisty woman ... but set in a more identifiable world." Adams said that "She has become more of a free-ranging journalist, someone who likes to be hands-on. The nature of the newspaper business has changed so much. There is so much more pressure."


 * Michael Shannon as General Zod:
 * A Kryptonian general and megalomaniac with the same superpowers as Superman. Viggo Mortensen was considered for the role. Snyder stated, "Zod is not only one of Superman's most formidable enemies, but one of the most significant, because he has insights into Superman that others don't. Michael is a powerful actor who can project both the intelligence and the malice of the character, making him perfect for the role." When Goyer was asked about why Zod was chosen as the villain, he stated, "The way (Christopher) Nolan and I have always approached movies as well is you never say, 'Hey, which villain would be cool for this movie?' You start with the story first. What kind of story? What kind of theme do you want to tell? So we worked that out. Then, usually the villain becomes obvious in terms of who's going to be the appropriate antagonist for that. When you guys see the movie, the only villain we could've used was Zod and the Kryptonians. I mean, when you see what the whole story is, nothing else would have even made sense." Shannon also commented on his portrayal in comparison to Terence Stamp's original take on Zod, "To follow Terence Stamp's iconic performance in the original, it is daunting, but I just focused on one day at a time. It's interesting that when we started with this, we did a lot of training together and I think that kind of helped loosen things up a little bit. It is a very physical movie at the end of the day. That's a good way to find your way 'into it' [as an actor]."


 * Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent:
 * The adoptive parents of Superman. Snyder explained his reason for his casting the on-screen couple is solely for the realism: "I think the thing you realize when you look at Diane and Kevin, in our decision to cast them so far, you sort of get a sense of how tonally we're looking at the movie, and what you realize is that those guys are serious actors, and we're taking this movie very seriously in terms of the tone of having those guys. You're talking about having a situation where whatever the action is or whatever the drama of the movie is, our first priority is to make sure it's rendered in the most realistic way we can get at." Lane was the first cast member to join the film after Cavill. "This was a very important piece of casting for me because Martha Kent is the woman whose values helped shape the man we know as Superman," Snyder said in the release. "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination."


 * Laurence Fishburne as Perry White:
 * The editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet and the boss of Lois Lane. Fishburne is the first African-American to play Perry White in a live-action film. Fishburne stated that he modeled his character after Ed Bradley, stating that "my inspiration really is the late Ed Bradley, who was a CBS correspondent on 60 Minutes for many years ... [The] legendary Ed Bradley... was a friend, a mentor, and a role model for me, particularly because he worked in journalism, and he was the kind of guy who walked with kings, but he had the common touch. And so he was my inspiration for Perry."


 * Russell Crowe as Jor-El:
 * The biological father of Superman. Sean Penn and Clive Owen were also considered for the role. Crowe incorporates how his own fatherhood informed his reading of the script to portray Jor-El, stating that "...it was one of those things where that's how it was connecting me. That's the question that Jor-El faces, that's the situation that he's in." Crowe also comments on his preparation for the film stating that: "When I signed on... well, one, I didn't realize that I would be wearing Spandex—'cause you know that's Superman's costume—I didn't realize that I'd have to fit into it as well," Crowe said. "But, I also didn't realize the type of organizer that Zack Snyder is, 'cause this was really old school prep. This is sort of David Lean-level preparation, and I really appreciated him. And I was on the movie for three-and-a-half or four months before I even got in front of the camera."


 * Antje Traue as Faora:
 * Zod's sub-commander and a commander of the Kryptonian military who is completely devoted and loyal to General Zod. Ruthless, cold, and brutal in her methods, Faora's military training and skills make her a very dangerous opponent to Superman. Faora is an expert in close quarters combat and melee weaponry.


 * Ayelet Zurer as Lara Lor-Van:
 * The biological mother of Superman and loyal wife to Jor-El. Julia Ormond had previously been announced as cast, but dropped out. Connie Nielsen was in negotiations for the role before Ormond was cast.


 * Harry Lennix as Lieutenant General Swanwick
 * Christopher Meloni as Colonel Nathan Hardy
 * Richard Schiff as Dr. Emil Hamilton
 * Mackenzie Gray as Jax-Ur.
 * Michael Kelly as Steve Lombard

Development
In June 2008, Warner Bros. took pitches from comic book writers, screenwriters and directors on how to successfully restart the Superman film series. Comic book writers Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer were among those who pitched their ideas for a reboot. "I told them, it’s not that bad. Just treat Superman Returns as the Ang Lee Hulk," Morrison said. "The Incredible Hulk has proven the audience will forgive you and let you redo the franchise," said Waid. Morrison's idea was similar to his work on All-Star Superman, while Waid's was akin to Superman: Birthright. Mark Millar, teaming with director Matthew Vaughn, also planned an epic eight-hour Superman trilogy, each installment released a year apart, similar to The Lord of the Rings. Millar compared it to the Godfather trilogy, in which it would chronicle the entire life of Superman, from the early days of Krypton to the finale where Superman loses his powers as the Sun starts to supernova.

In August 2008, Warner Bros. suggested a reboot of the film series. Studio executive Jeff Robinov planned to have the film released either by 2010 or 2011, explaining "Superman Returns didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to. It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. Now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all." Paul Levitz stated in an interview that Batman holds the key to the Superman reboot. He elaborated, "Everyone is waiting for Nolan to sign on for another Batman, once that happens, the release date for Superman and all other future projects will follow." In February 2009, McG, who previously planned to direct Superman: Flyby, expressed interest in returning to the Superman franchise. August 2009 saw a court ruling in which Jerry Siegel's family recaptured 50% of the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's share of the copyright in Action Comics#1. In addition, a judge ruled that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films. However, if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Siegel estate would have been able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film.

The plot of Man of Steel employs a nonlinear narrative, and tells parts of the story in flashback. During story discussions for The Dark Knight Rises in 2010, David S. Goyer told Christopher Nolan his idea regarding how to present Superman in a modern context. Impressed with Goyer's concept, Nolan pitched the idea to the studio, who hired Nolan to produce and Goyer to write based on the financial and critical success of The Dark Knight. Nolan admired Bryan Singer's work on Superman Returns for its connection to Richard Donner's version, stating that "A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that's what I know how to do," emphasizing the idea that Batman exists in a world where he is the only superhero and a similar approach to the Man of Steel would assure the integrity needed for the film. "Each serves to the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other." Nolan, however, clarified that the new film would not have any relationship with the previous film series.

Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, spoke to Entertainment Weekly, and allowed a peek over the wall of secrecy surrounding their DC Comics plans: "It's setting the tone for what the movies are going to be like going forward. In that, it's definitely a first step." Plans included for the film to contain references to the existence of other superheroes, alluding to the possibility of a further DC Universe, and setting the tone for a shared fictional universe of DC Comics characters on film. Guillermo del Toro, with whom Goyer worked on Blade II, turned down the director's position on the reboot because of his commitment on a film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, while Robert Zemeckis was also approached. Ben Affleck, Darren Aronofsky, Duncan Jones, Jonathan Liebesman, Matt Reeves, and Tony Scott were considered as potential directors, before Zack Snyder was hired in October 2010. Casting began the following November. Zack Snyder confirmed both Booster Gold and Batman references in the film, furthering the DC Cinematic Universe possibility. When Zod destroys a satellite, the words "Wayne Enterprises" are scrolled on the satellite.

Filming
Principal photography began on August 1, 2011, at an industrial park near DuPage Airport under the codename "Autumn Frost". Zack Snyder expressed reluctance to shooting the film in 3-D, due to the technical limitations of the format, and instead chose to shoot the film two-dimensionally and convert the film into 3-D in post production, for a 2-D, 3-D, and IMAX 3-D release. Snyder also chose to shoot the film on film instead of digitally, because he felt it would make the film, "a big movie experience". Filming was expected to last for two to three months. Production took place in Plano, Illinois on August 22 to 29. According to an interview with Michael Shannon, filming would continue until February 2012.

Man of Steel filmed in the Chicago area, California and Burnaby’s Mammoth Studios was transformed into Superman’s home planet of Krypton and myriad extraterrestrial aircraft. Metro lands on Vancouver's North Shore waterfront hosted the shoot for the dramatic oil rig rescue that introduces audiences to Superman. Ucluelet and Nanaimo, BC, feature prominently in the film’s first hour—the trademark winter mist and rough seas are passed off as Alaska in the film. Filming took place in the Chicago Loop from September 7 to 17. Vancouver production took place from September 21, 2011, to January 20, 2012. The Chicago shoot was a unit project, meaning that filming could partake numerous establishing shots as well as cutaways and may not necessarily include principal cast members.

Design
Man of Steel features a redesigned Superman costume by Jim Acheson and Michael Wilkinson. The costume preserves the color scheme and "S" logo, but adopts darker tones, and notably does not feature the red trunks usually worn by Superman. Zack Snyder said the costume is "a modern aesthetic". He and the producers attempted to devise a suit featuring the red trunks, but could not design one that fit into the tone of the film, leading to their removal from the suit. Due to the substantial weight a practical suit would yield, the Kryptonian armor for General Zod was constructed through CGI to allow Shannon "freedom of movement".

Effects
John "DJ" Desjardin served as the visual supervisor for Man of Steel, with Weta Digital, MPC, and Double Negative providing the visual effects for the film. Zack Snyder wanted the film to "appear very natural because there’s some very fantastical things in there and he wanted people to suspend their disbelief, and we the visual effects team had to make it as easy as possible for them to do so." Desjardin noted that the intent in shooting the film was to utilize handheld devices to make the film feel like a "documentary-style" film. "We had to think about what that would mean, since we also had to photograph some crazy action," said Desjardin. "So for a lot of the previs we did, we’d start to think where our cameras were and where our cameraman was. A lot of the rules are the Battlestar Galactica rules for the space cams that Gary Hurtzel developed for that miniseries, where we want to make sure if we're translating the camera at all it makes sense. Unless the action is so over the top, like in the end where Superman is beating up Zod—we had to break it a bit."

For the first act of the film taking place on the planet Krypton, Weta Digital placed alien-like planet environments, creatures and the principal means of display—a technology the filmmakers called "liquid geometry". Weta Digital visual effects supervisor Dan Lemmon explained that, "It’s a bunch of silver beads that are suspended through a magnetic field, and the machine is able to control that magnetic field so that the collection of beads behave almost like three-dimensional pixels, and they can create a surface that floats in the air and describes whatever the thing is you’re supposed to be seeing." The beads of the display, which up close would appear to be pyramids with a slight bevel, were designed to create a surface of the object to depict inside a "console-like" figure.

In the modeling and animation aspect of the liquid geometry, Goodwin explained, "We had to develop a pipeline to bring in assets, so instead of going through the route of reducing the polygon count to something usable what we would then do—you would take the model in whatever way it was made and just scatter discrete points onto it, and extract the matrix onto the animation and copy these points onto the matrix and have these sparse points behaving in a way that the model would." After the animation, artists duplicated the beads onto the animated geometry for a pre-simulated lighting version to get approval on how the object would read. Sims were then run "on all the targets which would be discrete beads floating around on top of the surface which would have its own set of parameters," said Goodwin. "The bead size or the turbulence that would crawl along the surface constantly updating the orientation was based on the normal provided by the surface. That was then saved to disk and we would use that sim as the final target for the simulation." After the simulation process, Weta Digital ran every bead through a temporal filter to remove jitter to control the noise. Lighting solutions directly worked on the set. Weta utilized RenderMan to take advantage of improved ray tracing and instancing objects.

The sequences where Superman utilizes close-combat fight scenes with the other Kryptonians proved to be a major challenge for the filmmakers and the visual effects crew. Desjardin explained, "When we do these fights and these hyper-real things, we don’t want to do the traditional, 'OK I’m a cameraman, I'm shooting a clean plate, I'm going to pan over here to follow the action that’s not really there yet but we'll put the action in later. Because that's us animating the characters to the camera. So we would do that animation with the characters—grappling, punching or flying away—and we would take the real guys up until the point until they were supposed to do that and we'd cut. Then we'd put an environment camera there and take the environment. And then a camera for reference of the actors and get each moment. So then we had a set of high-res stills for the environment and the characters. Then, in post, we take the digi-doubles and animate them according to the speeds we want them to move in our digital environment."

MPC handled the visual effects for the "Smallville encounter" sequence. Before providing the visual effects, the shots were previsualized for the fight choreography. After the previsualizations, live action portions of the scene would be filmed in small pieces. "If say Superman was being punched and would land 50 meters away, we would shoot our start position and end position, and then bridge that gap with the CG takeovers," says Guillaume Rocheron, the MPC visual effects supervisor. A camera rig would then obtain key frames of the choreographed actor. "It's a six-still camera rig that's built on a pipe rig so that you can run it in at the end of a setup and get stills of key frames of a performance or an expression," said Desjardin, "and then we could use those hi-res stills to project onto the CG double and get really accurate transition lighting and color—right from the set."

On set, a camera rig was used to capture the environment of the sequence. Dubbed "enviro-cam", the visual effects crew would mount a Canon EOS 5D and a motorized nodal head, allowing the crew to capture the environment at a 360-degree angle with 55k resolution for every shot, the process would take approximately two to four minutes. The set capture resulted in lighting and textures that could be reprojected onto geometry. Full-screen digital doubles were a major component for the fighting sequences. Digital armor was also added, along with the energy-based Kryptonian helmets. Cyberscan and FACS were conducted with the actors, and polarized and non-polarized reference photos were taken. Superman's cape and costume were scanned in high detail—the cape in particular became a direct extensions of Superman's actions.

For the sequences involving the terraforming of the city Metropolis, Double Negative handled the visual effects for the sequence. In order to construct a Metropolis that seemed convincing and realistic, Double Negative utilized Esri's CityEngine to help procedurally deliver the city. "That was a much more sci-fi based role," said Double Negative visual effects supervisor Ged Wright, “so we took what they had done and extended it a great deal. The work we were doing was based around the Downtowns for New York, L.A. and Chicago and that gave us the building volumes for heights. We’d skin those volumes with kit parts, but most of it then had to fall down! So we had to rig it for destruction and use it for other aspects of the work as well."

For the destruction of the buildings, the studio rewrote its own asset system to focus towards its dynamic events. The Bullet physics software was a heavily-impacted component for the utilization of the destruction. "We wanted to be able to run an RBD event and trigger all these secondary events, whether it was glass or dust simulations—all of those things needed to be chained up and handled in a procedural way," said Wright. "One of the advantages of this was that, because it was all based around a limited number of input components, you can make sure they're modeled in a way they’re useable in effects—you can model something but they'll be another stage to rig it for destruction." Fire, smoke, and water stimulation tools were developed at the Double Negative studio. The studio transitioned between the existing proprietary volume rendering software to rendering in Mantra for elements such as fireball sims. Double Negative also used the in-house fluids tool "Squirt" to handle larger scale sims and interaction for more tightly-coupled volumes and particles. Regarding the battle between Superman and Zod, Double Negative implemented real photography onto its digital doubles.

Music
Hans Zimmer initially denied popular rumors that he would be composing the film's score. However, in June 2012, it was confirmed that Zimmer would, in fact, be writing the film's musical score. To completely distinguish Man of Steel from the previous films, the iconic "Superman March" by John Williams was not used. Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Man of Steel was released publicly on June 11, 2013. An unofficial rip of the musical score from the third trailer, entitled "An Ideal of Hope", confirmed to be a cut-down version of the track "What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?", was released on April 19, 2013. In late April 2013, the official track listing of the two-disc deluxe edition was revealed.

Marketing
Warner Bros. and DC Comics won the rights to the domain name manofsteel.com, in use by a member of the public, for use for the film's official website. On November 20, 2012, for the release of The Dark Knight Rises DVD and Blu-ray, Warner Bros. launched a countdown on the film's website where fans could share the countdown on websites like Facebook or Twitter to unlock an "exclusive reward". On December 3, 2012, the "exclusive reward" was revealed to be an official Man of Steel teaser poster. The poster, which depicts Superman being arrested, generated a positive response and much speculation about the film's story. On December 10, 2012, a website appeared at dsrwproject.com that provided audio signals to be decoded by viewers. It was discovered to be related to the film due to the copyright on the website. By December 11, 2012, the decoded message led readers to another website with a countdown that led to the public release of the trailer. In anticipation of the film, Mattel unveiled a toy line which includes Movie Masters action figures. In addition, Lego will release three Man of Steel sets, inspired by scenes from the film; Rubie’s Costume Co. also released a new line of Man of Steel-inspired costumes and accessories for both kids and adults. The film has reportedly earned over $160 million from promotional tie-ins.

Viral marketing campaigns for the film began when the official website was replaced by "deep space radio waves". The message was decoded to reveal a voice that said "You Are Not Alone". The official site continued to be updated with new static files that slowly revealed the symbol for the film's villain, General Zod. Shortly after, the website was replaced with a "message" from Zod, who requested that Earth must return Kal-El to his custody and told Kal-El to surrender within 24 hours or the world would suffer the consequences. A viral site called "IWillFindHim.com" was released that showed a countdown to the third trailer for the film.

Warner Bros. enlisted a Christian-based marketing firm Grace Hill Media to help spread the Christian themes of the film to the religious demographics. Special trailers were created outlining the religious tones. Hollywood studios frequently market movies to specific religious and cultural groups. Warner Bros. previously marketed films such as The Blind Side, The Notebook, The Book of Eli and the Harry Potter series to faith-based groups. Warner Bros. asked Professor Craig Detweiler of Pepperdine University to "create a Superman-centric sermon outline for pastors titled 'Jesus: The Original Superhero.'" Paul Asay of The Washington Post writes that the "religious themes keep coming: Free will. Sacrifice. God-given purpose. Man of Steel isn’t just a movie. It’s a Bible study in a cape. The messages are so strong that its marketers been explicitly pushing the film to Christian audiences."

Themes
Many reviewers have stated that Man of Steel is a religious allegory, especially since Warner Bros set up a website www.manofsteelresources.com that contains "a nine-page pamphlet entitled Jesus – the Original Superhero." Justin Craig compares Kal-El's struggle to the passion of Christ, stating that "Kal-El is more than willing to sacrifice himself to save the people of Earth. Originally reluctant to reveal his identity and powers to the world, Supes decides to turn himself over to Zod to save humanity from annihilation." Craig also states that there is an allegory to the Trinity within Man of Steel: "Jor-El returns to Kal-El on Earth as a ghost, guiding his budding superhero son on his journey to salvation. Before Jor-El sends his son off to Earth baby Moses-style, he tells his wife that, like Jesus, 'He’ll be a god to them.'" Paul Asay of The Washington Post writes that "Superman floats in space with his arms splayed out as if nailed to an invisible cross," a fact that Craig also mentioned in his assessment of the film. The protagonist of the film is also 33 years old and seeks "counsel at a church."

Release
Man of Steel held a red carpet premiere on June 10, 2013 in New York City, which featured the attendance of the principal cast members. The film received a wide release on June 14, 2013 in conventional, 3D, and IMAX theaters.

Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 56% based on 285 reviews, with a rating average of 6.2/10. The site's consensus reads: "Man of Steel provides exhilarating action and spectacle to overcome its detours into generic blockbuster territory." Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 55/100, based on 47 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave for the film was an "A-", with an "A" from those under 18 years old and those older than 50 years old, on a scale of "A+ to F".

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said that Man of Steel covered no new ground with regard to Superman films and, instead, "we're plunged back into a mostly underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged fight scenes that drag on and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity". The Boston Globes Ty Burr wrote, "What’s missing from this Superman saga is a sense of lightness, of pop joy". The Washington Posts Ann Hornaday stated that with "Hans Zimmer’s turgid, over-produced score", the film "is an exceptionally unpleasant viewing experience". For The Denver Posts Lisa Kennedy, the chief problem with Man of Steel is the "rhythm and balance in the storytelling and directing" which resulted in a film that swings "between destructive overstatement and flat-footed homilies."

Jim Vejvoda of IGN gave Man of Steel a 9 out of 10, calling the film "amazing" and praising the action sequences and the performances of Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe and Michael Shannon. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said rebooting the franchise again was unnecessary, but that the film was confident enough and Snyder's attention to detail careful enough that audiences could overlook another reboot. PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek, III, wrote, "The path of this flawed savior isn’t quite the one that we have been led to expect and many fans will love that and many fans will decry its comic book-divergent choices. On the other hand, barring Lois Lane’s own knowledge of the dual nature of Clark and Superman (thus depriving one of fiction’s greatest reveals), the hero we see in the final moments of Man of Steel is nothing if not the character Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created… with just a bit more in the 'imperfections' column." Steve Persall of the Tampa Bay Times stated that, "Man of Steel is more than just Avengers-sized escapism; it's an artistic introduction to a movie superhero we only thought we knew." Time magazine's Richard Corliss said, "The movie finds its true, lofty footing not when it displays Kal-El’s extraordinary powers, but when it dramatizes Clark Kent’s roiling humanity. The super part of Man of Steel is just okay, but the man part is super." In a review on Roger Ebert's website, Matt Zoller Seitz awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it an "astonishing movie" and praising the conflict between Clark and Zod. However, he criticizes Clark's relationship with Lois for lacking chemistry.

Box office
Man of Steel earned $291,045,518 in North America and an estimated $396,954,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $687,999,518, making it the highest-grossing Superman film to date, and the second-highest-grossing reboot of all time behind The Amazing Spider-Man, although it did beat The Amazing Spider-Man domestically. The film earned $116.6 million on its opening weekend, including $17.5 million from IMAX theaters.

Man of Steel made $12 million from a Thursday night Wal-Mart screening program, and an additional $9 million from midnight shows. This marked Warner Bros.' third-highest advance night/midnight opening, and the biggest advance night/midnight debut for a non-sequel. The film eventually earned $44.0 million during its opening Friday (including midnight grosses) and $56.1 million when the Thursday night showings are included. The opening-day gross was the second highest for a non-sequel, and the 20th largest overall. Its opening weekend gross of $116.6 million was the third-highest of 2013, behind Iron Man 3 ($174.1 million) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($158.1 million), and the second-highest among non-sequels, behind The Hunger Games ($152.5 million). It also broke Toy Story 3's record ($110.3 million) for the highest weekend debut in June. However, on its second weekend, Man of Steel's box office fell almost 65%—almost 68% if the Thursday night gross is included—putting it in third place, behind Monsters University and World War Z. Box Office Mojo called it an "abnormally large drop," close to the second weekend decline for Green Lantern.
 * North America

Man of Steel earned $73.3 million on its opening weekend from 24 countries, which includes $4.2 million from 79 IMAX theaters, setting a June opening-weekend record for IMAX. The film set an opening-day record in the Philippines with $1.66 million. In the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, Man of Steel earned $5.6 million on its opening day and £11.2 million ($17.47 million) on its opening weekend. Its biggest opener outside the U.S. was in China, with $25.9 million in four days (Thursday to Sunday). In total earnings, its three largest countries after North America are China ($63.4 million), the UK, Ireland and Malta ($46.2 million) and Australia ($22.3 million).
 * Outside North America

Home media
Man of Steel was released on two-disc DVD, and respective Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D combo packs on November 12, 2013 and on December 2, 2013 in UK.

Sequel
In June 2013, it was announced that director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer would both be returning for a Man of Steel sequel, which is being fast tracked by Warner Bros. Goyer had previously signed a three-film deal, which includes Man of Steel, its sequel, and a Justice League film featuring Superman. Christopher Nolan has announced he will be attached as executive producer, while composer Hans Zimmer is set to return to score the sequel. Later in the month, the studio was considering a 2014 release for the film.

In July 2013, Zack Snyder confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con International that the sequel to Man of Steel in 2015 will have Superman and Batman meeting for the first time in a cinematic format. Goyer and Snyder will co-write the story, with Goyer writing the script. Cavill, Adams, Lane, and Fishburne will reprise their roles. Snyder stated that the film would take inspiration from the comic The Dark Knight Returns. However, in November 2013, Snyder clarified that the film would not be based on the graphic novel. "If you were going to do that, you would need a different Superman. We’re bringing Batman into the universe that now this Superman lives in." Goyer stated at the Superman 75th Anniversary Panel at Comic-Con, that Superman and Batman will face off, and titles under consideration are Superman vs Batman or Batman vs Superman. The production will film in Toronto, Ontario, rather than Vancouver as Man of Steel did.

In August 2013, Ben Affleck was announced to be playing Batman, as well as a July 17, 2015 release date for the film. Filming will take place in Detroit and other areas in Michigan. Filming commenced on October 19, 2013, at East Los Angeles College to shoot a football game between Gotham City University and rival Metropolis State University.

By November 2013, Gal Gadot, Elodie Yung and Olga Kurylenko were under consideration for a lead female role. At the end of the month, construction began on the Kent farm seen in Man of Steel for the film. In December 2013, Gadot was cast in the lead role, revealed to be Wonder Woman. Later in the month, Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio was hired to rewrite the script, due to Goyer's commitments in other projects.

In January 2014, it was announced that the film had been delayed from its original July 17, 2015 release date to May 6, 2016, in order to give the filmmakers "time to realize fully their vision, given the complex visual nature of the story". At the end of the month, Jesse Eisenberg and Jeremy Irons were cast as Lex Luthor and Alfred Pennyworth, respectively. Snyder described the casting of Eisenberg as Luthor by stating, "Having Jesse in the role allows us to explore that interesting dynamic, and also take the character in some new and unexpected directions." In March 2014, the Illinois Film Office revealed that additional filming will take place in the Yorkville, Illinois area in late 2014.

In April 2014, Holly Hunter, Callan Mulvey and Tao Okamoto were cast in unspecified roles. Later in the month, Zimmer confirmed that he would return to compose the sequel's score. By the end of April, Ray Fisher had been cast as Victor Stone / Cyborg, a minor role that will become more significant in additional films leading up to the proposed Justice League film.