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 (but more positive than earlier entries such as Date Movie and Meet the Spartans), but received a moderate box office success, grossing over $71 million worldwide on a $35 million budget.
Plot
Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert (Leslie Nielsen) and Aunt Lucille (Marion Ross), and his best friend, Trey (Kevin Hart). Rick has a crush on Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton), but she is dating bully Lance Landers (Ryan Hansen). One day, Rick's class goes on a school field trip to an animal research lab run by terminally ill businessman Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald), 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 realises 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 (Tracy Morgan) 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. 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 Dragonfly saves her and they share a kiss. Meanwhile, Landers plans to construct a machine that will kill people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. Later that night, Landers and Lance have dinner with Rick's family and Jill, but Landers secretly learns of Rick's true identity when he notices the same injuries on Rick as on Dragonfly. Making up an awkward excuse, he and Lance leave. Landers returns minutes later as Hourglass and kills Aunt Lucille. Albert awakens from his coma and learns about her death. 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, Landers tells Rick the Dalai Lama for Hourglass, causing the Dragonfly to assault the Dalai Lama, causing chaos. Meanwhile, Jill discovers that Landers 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 Dragonfly dives after her, eventually growing wings and flies. Jill learns that Rick is 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.
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
Critical response
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 13 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
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
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
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.
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]
