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Somewhere in Time

Where to watch.

Rent Somewhere in Time on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Jeannot Szwarc

Christopher Reeve

Richard Collier

Jane Seymour

Elise McKenna

Christopher Plummer

William Fawcett Robinson

Teresa Wright

Laura Roberts

Arthur Biehl

Movie Clips

More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, somewhere in time.

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"Somewhere in Time" wants us to share its sweeping romantic idealism, about a love so great that it spanned the decades and violated the sanctity of time itself. But we keep getting distracted by nagging doubts, like, isn't it a little futile to travel 68 years backward into time for a one-night stand? The movie surrounds its love story with such boring mumbo jumbo about time travel that we finally just don't care.

It didn't have to be that way. Last year's underrated and neglected movie "Time after Time," which had H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper traveling forward into modern San Francisco, contained a love story that had a lot of sly fun with the notion of relationships between people of different eras. "Somewhere in Time" has a lot of qualities, but slyness and fun are not two of them.

This movie drips with solemnity. It enshrines its lovers in such excessive romantic nobility that Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody plays almost every time they're on the screen. This is the kind of romance so sacred, so serious, so awesome, that you have to lower your voice in the presence of it. Romances like those are boring even to the monstrous egos usually involved in them.

But back to the movie. "Somewhere in Time" stars Christopher Reeve as a Chicago playwright who visits the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and sees a photograph there of an actress who appeared at the hotel in 1912. He is smitten; no, he is obsessed. He researches the career of the actress, falls in love with her, learns from a pseudoscientific psychology professor that time travel is possible, and hypnotizes himself to travel back to 1912.

The movie never makes it clear whether the playwright actually does travel through time, or only hypnotizes himself into thinking he does. It doesn't matter. Once he's back in 1912, or thinks he is, he meets the young actress, who is played by the preternaturally beautiful Jane Seymour . "Is it ... you?" she breathes. It is! It is! A little of this goes a long way, even with Rachmaninoff. Especially with Rachmaninoff.

There is, of course, a villain. He is the young actress's manager, played by Christopher Plummer . He has guided her career since she was 16, and now resents the intrusion of this stranger who has come from nowhere, is dressed oddly, and threatens to steal his protégé. There are some intrigues, as the three of them steal about the rooms and grounds of the magnificent Grand Hotel. But there are never any scenes that really deal with the romance between Reeve and Seymour -and, incredibly, the movie avoids the opportunity to exploit in their relationship the fact that Reeve is from the future. All of the delightful revelations and paradoxes that could have resulted from Reeve revealing that fact are simply ignored.

This is, of course, Reeve's first movie since " Superman ," and he is not particularly convincing in it. He seems a little stolid, a little ungainly; he's so desperately earnest in his love for this actress that he always seems to be squinting a little. The whole movie is so solemn, so worshipful toward its theme, that it's finally just silly.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Somewhere in Time (1980)

103 minutes

Christopher Plummer as W. F. Robinson

Bill Erwin as Arthur

Teresa Wright as Laura Roberts

Bo Clausen as Man in Elevator

Christopher Reeve as Richard Collier

Jane Seymour as Elise McKenna

Photographed by

• Isidore Mankofsky
• Jeff Gourson

Screenplay by

• Richard Matheson

Produced by

• Stephen Deutsch

Directed by

• Jeannot Szwarc

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Somewhere in time.

1980 Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Someday in the past he will find her...

Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to find out about her, and learns that she is a famous stage actress from the early 1900s. Becoming more and more obsessed with her, by self-hypnosis he manages to travel back in time—where he meets her.

Christopher Reeve Jane Seymour Christopher Plummer Teresa Wright Bill Erwin George Voskovec Susan French John Alvin Eddra Gale Audrey Bennett William H. Macy Laurence Coven Susan Bugg

Director Director

Jeannot Szwarc

Producers Producers

Ray Stark Stephen Deutsch Steve Bickel

Writer Writer

Richard Matheson

Original Writer Original Writer

Casting casting.

Jennifer Shull

Editor Editor

Jeff Gourson

Cinematography Cinematography

Isidore Mankofsky

Production Design Production Design

Seymour Klate

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Mary Ann Biddle

Composer Composer

Costume design costume design.

Jean-Pierre Dorléac

Universal Pictures Rastar Productions

Releases by Date

02 oct 1980, 03 oct 1980, 05 feb 1981, 27 apr 1981, 07 may 1982, 02 nov 1986, 01 jan 2000, releases by country.

• Theatrical L
• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical 11
• Theatrical PG
• Physical PG

103 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by phoebe 💫 ★★★½ 1

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

greatest movie villains: - hannibal lecter - darth vader - the joker - 1979 penny

Review by russman ★★★ 3

I wish they came up with a more plausible method for Christopher Reeve to travel back in time. Like flying around the Earth real fast or something.

Review by Rick Burin ★★★★★ 4

It's the hotel guest from hell (Christopher Reeve), re-arranging his room, bothering the guests and waking up the caretaker in the middle of the night, demanding to go in the attic. And all because he's fallen in love with a woman from 1912 (Jane Seymour).

This time-travelling love story was panned on release, but has since attracted an obsessive following, and with good reason. It's wonderfully imaginative, extremely sure-footed, and has a heightened romantic sensibility reminiscent of both Brief Encounter and The Ghost and Mrs Muir, with a strong sense of conviction and an engaging unpretentiousness across both the performances and direction.

I thought I might struggle to accept Seymour as the greatest actress of her age, but she's surprisingly…

Review by Tylot Lantern ★★★★ 1

I wish someone would look at me the way Christopher Reeve looks at the picture of Jane Seymour.

Review by Nina Bey ★★★★★ 1

The penny scene? Terrifying.

Review by Nola Emrys ★★★ 1

superman gets so horny looking at a picture of a dead woman that he travels through time by sheer force of will to get some ass

Review by felicia ★★★ 1

if christopher reeve can just wish himself back 60 years in time for a woman he saw in a picture then i guess i'm wishing myself back to 1972 to date young al pacino who's stopping me

Review by Wesley Stenzel ★ 3

I have never seen a time travel romance so disinterested in both time travel and romance. I can forgive a movie with a loose explanation of its sci-fi element, which, in this case, can be summed up with “dude goes 70 years into the past by concentrating really hard and straight vibing,” whatever.

I cannot forgive, however, a movie that fleshes out its romantic arc in even less detail than its paper-thin time travel mechanic. The film’s broadest ideas sound great on paper — it all fixates on transcendent yearning, destiny, and the sheer power of love, which could make for an excellent love story in theory. But it can’t possibly work when it dedicates almost zero effort to convincing…

Review by Amir ★★★★ 1

Me in the beginning: Jesus christ another boring time travel movie centered on a love interest, god damnit.

Me half way: You know, this is actually incredibly charming, I really like this movie, yeah, it's fun, despite how tunnel visioned it is.

Me towards the end: I completely buy this movie, it's just such a feel good movie.

Me after the ending: Oh.

Review by olivia ★★★★★ 5

i cried for like an hour after this. it's beautiful, but it'll break your heart into a thousand pieces.

Review by Lebowskidoo 🇨🇦 🎬 🍿 ★★★★★ 1

"Come back to me..."

Is there a better theme for a romantic movie than the tale of two lovers that can't be together? This movie, which I saw decades ago, has never left my mind. It's beautiful, but sad too. If you've ever had to be apart from someone you've loved, this movie will get you in the feels in a big way.

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour are just perfect together, and these are probably the best roles either has ever had. Nice to see that, although the movie landed with a thud initially, has developed such a huge following today. It's influence has even trickled down to James Cameron's Titanic, or so it seems.

Most of all, John Barry's achingly beautiful and longing score sells the story even more so. It's one of my favorites of all time. I dare you to hear it and not feel anything at all. You won't.

Review by lylaw ★★★½ 1

Just one more reason why pennies are the absolute worst coin #retirethepenny

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Somewhere in Time

Cast & crew.

Christopher Reeve

Richard Collier

Jane Seymour

Elise McKenna

Christopher Plummer

William Fawcett Robinson

Teresa Wright

Laura Roberts

Arthur Biehl

Moony time travel tale is best for incurable romantics.

• Average 5.9

Information

© 1980 UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Somewhere In Time: How A Time Travel Romance Starring Superman Found Its Fans

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Saturday, Oct. 3 marks the 40th anniversary of Somewhere in Time , a film that took one of the longest, weirdest journeys to popularity. It was savaged at the box office for being stodgy, overly romantic, and out of touch. But today, it's a cult favorite, beloved for the very qualities it was panned for. Its fan base includes retired 4-star General Colin Powell, a couple of FilmWeek critics, and me.

Here's the thumbnail: An elderly actress shows up at the premiere of a young playwright's new production. The playwright becomes obsessed with her and wills himself back in time 67 years to meet her as a young woman. They're kept apart by her manager, but get one perfect day and night together -- before he gets cruelly pulled back to the present and dies of a broken heart. They reunite in Heaven.

Christopher Reeve, fresh from Superman , is the playwright. Jane Seymour, then of Battlestar Galactica , is the actress. And Christopher Plummer, who had just killed as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree , is her controlling manager. The bestselling score was by John Barry, and it was directed by Jeannot Szwarc -- who had just saved Universal's butt by taking over Jaws 2 .

The TV and movie veteran -- whose directing credits range from a 1968 episode of Ironside to a 2019 episode of Grey's Anatomy -- is almost 81, and retired last year to France.

When I reached him there this summer, he said, "What I loved about Somewhere in Time was that there was very little sex, but there was a lot of love. It was really what the French call l'amour fou , a crazy love. You know, they don't make pictures like that anymore." When I responded, "They weren't making pictures like that in 1980," he laughed and said, "I know."

The screenplay is by Richard Matheson, adapted from his novel Bid Time Return , which he set at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. It would have been convenient to Hollywood -- but because of the power lines, traffic noise, and modern buildings, Szwarc would have needed a time machine to shoot the 1912 scenes at the Hotel del.

Enter an actual time machine: Mackinac Island, off Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Once the center of the fur trade, they had buried their power lines, preserved their Victorian architecture, and banned cars. People get around by horse carriage and bike.

My dad was doing PR for the Island back then, so I grew up spending much of the summer there. But unlike pretty much everyone else on the Island, I didn't get to be an extra in the film.

Mackinac also has a giant Victorian hotel -- Grand Hotel, built in 1887. Back in the day, wealthy Chicagoans went there in the summer to escape the heat. But of course, the Somewhere in Time team had to do their site visit in February. During one of the coldest winters on record. With the Great Lakes frozen from shore to shore.

Szwarc and producer Stephen Deutsch (now Stephen Simon) were being towed around the Island by islander Dan Dewey, who went on to become location manager for the film. At one point, he drove 100 yards out onto the ice so the two men -- who he said looked like they were wearing the entire stock of an Eddie Bauer store -- could get a good look at the Grand

Szwarc turned to Dewey and Simon and asked innocently, "Where is the water?" Both of them say nothing, but point down to the ice. "Oh," says the director, realizing he's standing over 100 feet of 32.1-degree water. "Can we go now?"

Even under a blanket of snow, they can see that the Island is the perfect location for the movie -- but they're still 2,400 miles from Hollywood.

"We were about to leave and Jeannot and I were talking," Simon said. "We can't shoot the rooms in the hotel," because they will be occupied by guests. "That needs to be a set. There's no place to build a set here!"

"Well you might be wrong about that," Dewey said.

Islander Trish Martin picks up the story:

"There was an organization that had its world headquarters on Mackinac Island known as Moral Re-Armament. You may not have heard of them, but you might've heard of some of their offshoots, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Up with People. They made a lot of films, along with doing roadshows and so on, and they had a full film studio: editing rooms, a big soundstage, and the whole bit."

Trish was actually in a crowd scene in Decision at Midnight , an MRA production with Martin Landau that was shot on the island in 1963.

The complex also had enough rooms for the cast and crew, solving another of the headaches from when you make a movie on a remote resort island in the middle of high season. It was kismet, and with the exception of a few early shots in Chicago, where the movie starts, the rest was shot on Mackinac from late May to late July of 1979.

They wrapped the production only 9 days over schedule, and went back to California. Everything had gone so well; nobody anticipated the cruel fate awaiting the little romantic picture they put so much love into.

But before we go there... let's talk about how the movie handles time travel. As he's obsessing about the actress, Reeve is told by a professor -- played by George Voskovec, who was one of the jurors in Twelve Angry Men , -- that you can will yourself back in time.

In the realm of time travel movies, self-hypnosis must be one of the simplest methods. The polar opposite Avengers: Endgame, which improbably namechecked Somewhere in Time during the Hulk's big explanation of how time travel works.

Getting namechecked in the biggest movie of the millennium was such a big moment for us Somewhere in Time fans, I had to call up Avengers screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Were they big fans? No -- McFeely says it was just a list of time travel movies they included in a reshoot.

"We found that we really needed to just spend something like two minutes having the Hulk tell people that's not how it works in this movie. We just called out the elephant in the room: other time travel movies, which were sort of getting in the audience's way."

"We got all tangled up in whether there were consequences or no consequences. If it's all in your head there's no consequences, you can do what you want," Markus said.

The two -- the most successful screenwriters in history -- actually sounded a little jealous that Somewhere in Time 's time travel method could be sketched out on a cocktail napkin, while you need a spreadsheet for Endgame .

Let's time travel ourselves, back to 1980. When last we left our heroes, they had just wrapped what was by all accounts a very happy shoot, and it seemed like the stars were aligned for a success for Somewhere in Time . On the strength of two rapturous previews, Universal gave it wide release.

But because of a strike, the stars couldn't support the film they made. And then came the reviews.

Leonard Maltin: Stilted dialogue, corny situations, pretty scenery. Roger Ebert: The movie surrounds its love story with such boring mumbo jumbo about time travel that we finally just don't care. Vincent Canby: Somewhere in Time ... does for time-travel what the Hindenburg did for dirigibles.

"Jerry was in love with Somewhere in Time . Not only did he run it, sometimes he ran it twice in the same night. That started the ball. And then, HBO in their early early days were not buying blockbusters because they couldn't afford it. So , what did HBO program? Movies that hadn't worked out well at the box office."

The second man was Bill Shepard, whom producer Simon says did more for Somewhere in Time 's eventual success than any other person. Bill told me how he discovered the movie that would change his life.

"I was going with a very nice lady from Saint Paul," Shepard said. "She was actually the one who suggested going to the movies. I sat there for 103 minutes literally enchanted. I'd never seen a movie like that before that affected me like that. And as the two of us were walking out of the theater, she turned to me and said, 'Well, that didn't do that much for me. How about you?'"

The lady soon left Shepard's life, but the movie stayed in his heart. In 1990, he started INSITE: the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts . And the next year, realizing the huge number of people who wanted a deeper experience, he organized the first Somewhere in Time weekend on Mackinac.

In a story filled with time travel, this weekend gathering is yet another time machine. Think of it as a Comic-Con, but where cosplayers get to actually be in Hyrule on the hunt for Ganon , or ride in a real Totoro cat bus . At the end of October each year, Somewhere in Time fans take the ferry to Mackinac, dress in period-correct clothes, act out scenes from the movie, and see the shooting locations -- led by our old friend the snowmobile driver, Dan Dewey.

This is not like a con where a grumpy Lou Ferrigno charges for autographs . The cast and crew love the weekends at the Grand just as much as the fans. As Steve Hellerstein, the movie's transportation captain, told me, "this has made my film career complete. I finally did a film that is recognized... and I'm recognized." Just like the stars, he's invited to and feted at the Somewhere in Time weekends. (Steve Hellerstein died Aug. 8 at the age of 73.)

Jane Seymour attended last year, for the third time -- and her co-star, Christopher Reeve, came in 1994. There's video of the event , and you can see him practically bouncing on the stage taking questions from the audience.

And when someone asks him where "Somewhere in Time" ranks among all the movies he made, he delivers an off-the-cuff monologue that sums up an actor's life.

"This holds the prime place by the fireside in my heart. This is the one that I have the greatest gratitude for. It's very hard to perform and do your work, where you put your emotions forward for the camera, for people to see... and then have it greeted officially by the sound of one hand clapping. And that people found this move and said, 'Wait a minute! It didn't deserve the fate that it got. It didn't deserve to be treated that way.' It moves me more than you can know."

"I romanticize this movie ridiculously," he said. "My wife and I saw the movie for the first time in 1981 [the year they got married]. We loved it because we looked at it and I think we saw ourselves in it. Just married and bananas in love, and passionate about each other the way they are in the film. So that colored what I felt and thought about the film my entire life. I watched it again recently and it made me tear up in all the same places, and it made me long for my wife, who I lost in 2013 to cancer."

Justin Chang, critic for Fresh Air and the L.A. Times , told me, "One of the reasons Somewhere in Time has endured is because it has the courage of its absurd convictions." As he wrote in Variety in 2013:

Ludicrous and irresistible, Somewhere in Time belongs to a long and glorious tradition of love stories ... in which time travel serves as a crucial narrative element and structuring device. It is a genre whose charms I've found myself unusually susceptible to in recent years. ... Wildly romantic, brazenly paradoxical and stubbornly resistant to the rules of logic, these films rely for their effect on a blissful surrender of reason. To dismiss them as ridiculous or implausible is to miss both the point and the pleasure.

As Shakespeare wrote in Richard II , "O call back yesterday. Bid time return," because all the "life" stuff eventually happened to me -- some of it quite brutally. And as the years passed, more and more I appreciated the corny themes of Somewhere in Time . And more and more I understood why older people tell and retell the stories from their past.

In his memoir Hand to Mouth , the novelist Paul Auster wrote, "Reach a certain moment in your life, and you discover that your days are spent as much with the dead as they are with the living." To that, I would only add, "And I'm OK with that."

KPCC's John Rabe is the host of the new podcast Call Back Yesterday , which explores how the themes of Somewhere in Time intersect with the lives of his guests and him. The first episode features FilmWeek's Tim Cogshell.

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately stated Jeannot Szwarc's age. LAist regrets the error.

Somewhere in Time Review – The Special Christopher Reeve Film at 40

I miss Christopher Reeve.

I don’t say that in a fanboy “I miss my favourite Superman” way, though that’s certainly a factor. In his four film performances as the Man of Steel, Reeve essayed the role with sincerity and integrity, and — more importantly — without embarrassment or irony. The tagline that sold 1978’s Superman — “You’ll believe a man can fly” — was as much a tribute to Reeve as the special effects wizardry on display. People like to joke about the four Chrises that dominate modern comic book cinema — Evans, Hemsworth, Pratt, Pine — but Reeve was the first Chris — nay, the first actor — to tackle a major comic book role in a blockbuster film and to struggle with the typecasting that accompanies it. In many respects, Reeve had a rougher ride. He never had a second franchise in his back pocket, unlike Pratt ( Guardians of the Galaxy , Jurassic World ) and Pine ( Star Trek , Wonder Woman ). He never got multiple shots in expensive failures like Hemsworth ( In the Heart of the Sea , Blackhat , Men in Black: International ), nor a chance to headline an Oscar contender like Pine ( Hell or High Water ) or critical darlings like Evans ( Snowpiercer , Knives Out ). And unlike Evans, he wasn’t afforded an opportunity to hone his heroic Boy Scout character over successively stronger films: the dip in quality between Superman II and III is jarring, and watching Superman IV is like falling down six flights of stairs and landing in a shark’s mouth.

But I love seeing Reeve in his non-Superman roles too. I love seeing the small and sometimes odd choices he made on screen. The films themselves are hit and miss, and you cannot underestimate how vital a catalogue of popular titles is to a star’s longevity. It’s why folks like Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise became stars and remain pop culture staples, and why, in contrast, someone like Mickey Rourke — a better actor, but one who played scuzzy characters in scuzzy films — isn’t as popular. With Reeve, Superman and Superman II granted him cultural longevity, but nobody is tweeting about Monsignor or Rose and the Jackal or Switching Channels . There’s some great work in his filmography though for completists, in films like Death Trap and The Bostonians and Street Smart and Noises Off and The Remains of the Day , and I enjoy his small turn in the original Batman V. Superman , aka Speechless .

And in the paragraphs that follow I’ll be advocating for Jeannot Szwarc’s Somewhere in Time — which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year—as an absolutely special title that deserves attention.

Reeve plays Richard Collier, a hot young playwright who becomes transfixed by and falls in love with the portrait of an early twentieth century stage actress. Collier strips his surrounds of all contemporary paraphernalia and uses self-hypnosis to will himself back to 1912. There he meets and romances the object of his adoration, Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), but must also contend with her controlling and ambitious manager (Christopher Plummer).

The 1980s was a banner decade for time travel onscreen, used to great effect in Somewhere in Time , Back to the Future , The Terminator , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , and Time After Time (technically a 1979 film, but one of the first theatrical releases of the 1980s in Australia). Like The Terminator , Somewhere in Time is a doomed time travel romance, though Szwarc’s film is distinctly more low-fi and shorn of kinetic action scenes. Whilst Somewhere in Time is the gentlest and least interested in sci-fi trappings of these five films, the story first originated as Bid Time Return , a 1975 novel by a bona fide sci-fi/fantasy master, Richard Matheson. Matheson is a great yet perennially underrated author of novels, stories, films, and television (including the early Spielberg showcase Duel and multiple episodes of The Twilight Zone ). One of Matheson’s particular gifts—exemplified by the novels I Am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man , and the short story Nightmare at 20,000 Feet , which became one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes and movie segments—is his knack for conveying the neurotic inner monologue and granular turning of the mental screws of alienated protagonists in overwhelming circumstances. Though not as finely honed as in the above works, that quality is present to some degree in Bid Time Return . And like most adaptations of Matheson’s work to screen, it’s a quality peculiar to written fiction that simply doesn’t translate to the screen. Yet Somewhere in Time as an adaptation is satisfying in a way that, say, the three screen adaptations of I Am Legend are not. Partly that’s due to Matheson adapting his own work for celluloid as screenwriter. He recalibrates the story for the screen, fleshing it out where needed beyond the protagonist’s point of view, adding several colourful support characters, concocting an ingenious introduction where the elder McKenna meets Collier in the present, and seeding in some clever time travel conceits.

Reeve and Seymour help considerably in making the characters feel fully realised onscreen. Reeve conveys Collier’s journey from aloof playwright to devoted romantic nicely. Moreover, though he’s every inch a handsome leading man and, at first glance, deceptively milquetoast, there’s a freak flag that Reeve lets fly from time to time (I can’t imagine you get to be one of Robin Williams’ best friends without a smidgen of weirdness) that shines through in Somewhere in Time via some cute oddball touches, such as when Collier attempts (and fails) to act suitably “old timey” in his 1912 surrounds.

Jane Seymour has, in some respects, the trickier character. She inhabits the same role as Linda Hamilton in The Terminator — a woman whose picture alone compels a man to travel back in time to meet her — yet Sarah Connor has the added carrot of being the mother of humanity’s foremost future freedom fighter, where Elise McKenna is merely a stage actress. McKenna thus becomes an almost Helen of Troy-esque figure: a woman whose beauty, to quote Christopher Marlowe, launched a thousand ships (or, in this case, compelled time travel), a quality that stirs the imagination in myth and literature but sets a high bar for actresses to fulfil onscreen (even beauties like Elizabeth Taylor and Diane Kruger who’ve portrayed Helen of Troy on celluloid don’t quite live up to that high benchmark). However, Seymour is credible as the object of Richard’s affection; better still, she is credible as the human being behind the portrait, radiating both outer and inner beauty and giving texture and nuance to McKenna.  

Jeannot Szwarc’s filmography mightn’t, at first glance, inspire much confidence. His preceding film, Jaws 2 , is an admittedly solid, decent creature feature (the success of which helped propel Somewhere in Time into existence) but suffers the acute misfortune of following one of the most popular films of all time. Subsequent 1980s credits include Supergirl and Santa Claus: The Movie , both critical and commercial whiffs with little celluloid footprint, which — given some of the detritus from the 1980s that retains a cultural foothold — is really saying something. But as Walter Hill remarked in a recent episode of the Brett Easton Ellis podcast , you only need one great film to leave a mark, and Somewhere in Time is that film for Szwarc. It’s a delicate assignment, with material that could be overwrought or ridiculous if handled poorly, but Szwarc’s touch here is deft, and there’s an elegance and class and crispness on display that’s absent from the rest of his CV.

Szwarc has a good team behind him, including the abovementioned Matheson smartly adapting his own source novel, impeccable cinematography by Isidore Mankofsky ( The Muppet Movie ), Oscar-nominated costume design by Jean-Pierre Dorleac, and above all an exquisite score by John Barry (with a helping hand from Rachmaninoff). Barry was the dominant musical architect of the James Bond series for a quarter century (contributing, among other ditties, this particular favourite ), composed several Oscar-winning film scores—including The Lion in Winter , Out of Africa , and Dances with Wolves —and furnished even dreck like 1976’s King Kong remake, Bruce Lee-sploitation cash-grab Game of Death , and The Specialist (basically Body Heat with Stallone and more explosions) with lush orchestral treatments, elevating them to a higher tier of pulp and lending them weight and foreboding. Somewhere in Time is one of his very best scores, which is no small compliment: it’s sumptuous, mournful, romantic work. Take the scene below, where Collier and McKenna meet for the very first time in the past, and be swept up by the juxtaposition of the scene’s stillness and Barry’s building, sweeping, swooning composition. 

In my recent piece on The Blues Brothers and Fame , I noted that with the exception of Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back , the top 10 American box office victors of 1980— 9 to 5 , Stir Crazy , Kramer vs. Kramer , Any Which Way You Can , Private Benjamin , Coal Miner’s Daughter , Smokey and the Bandit II , The Blues Brothers , Ordinary People —is strikingly grounded in its focus on human beings in comedic, romantic, and/or dramatic situations and couldn’t be replicated today. But it’s also a loud, brash marketplace, and there’s not really a place for a deadly earnest period romance like Somewhere in Time . According to Box Office Mojo , it clocked in at #38 on that list, half a million short of Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories at #37 and a million above John G. Avildsen’s The Formula at #39 (the fact Allen’s Annie Hall , Reeve’s Superman, and Avildsen’s Rocky were all major successes of the 1970s just goes to show the boom and bust nature of the movie business). Mercifully, the film was spared the indignity of being out-grossed by The Gong Show and Oh Heavenly Dog . But Somewhere in Time has enjoyed cult longevity, spawning a fan club and conventions at Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel where much of the film was shot.

I think it deserves even more love. I’d argue that fans of Titanic and The Notebook — two other romantic dramas that straddle past and present, have sap streaks a mile wide, and are finely-crafted, ruthlessly manipulative weep machines — would find much to like about Somewhere in Time , and would in all likelihood be reduced to emotional goo by it.

Southside With You Review

Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay Somewhere in Time is that, despite repeated exposure over time (it’s one of my mother’s favourite films) and despite writing about it at length already (something that can often irrevocably break the toy), it’s a film I have unfinished business with, at a time when I’m actively shedding films. There are a lot of movies I’m “done” with, ready and happy to amicably part ways from and never watch again. I’m done with The French Connection . I’m waaay done with Taxi Driver . Though I called it my favourite film for many years, I’m pretty much done with Chinatown . Though I sang their praises loudly just a few weeks ago, I’m fairly done with the superhero film class of 1989–92 . Yet Somewhere in Time is a film I’m not done with. I acknowledge that there’s an element of celluloid comfort food here, but more than that, Somewhere in Time is a great illustration of Roger Ebert’s belief that a movie can be a “powerful empathy machine … The great movies enlarge us, they civilise us, they make us more decent people” [1] . A little comfort, a little empathy, a little decency … not bad things to look for in 2020.

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer

Writer: Richard Matheson, (based on the novel Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson)

[1] Ironically, Ebert himself did not think the same of Somewhere in Time , calling the film “boring” and Reeve “stolid” and awarding it only two stars. Everyone’s a critic …

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Jane Seymour recalls her and Christopher Reeve falling 'madly in love' making Somewhere in Time

Life imitates art, or vice versa.

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

Somewhere in Time has remained a romantic favorite since it first hit theaters in 1980, but it turns out the real love story went beyond the one on screen.

At the TCM Classic Film Festival this past weekend, Jane Seymour opened up about her and costar Christopher Reeve falling hard for each other while making the time-travel romance. The actress has long spoken of the enduring friendship she and Reeve cultivated on the film but has rarely discussed their romantic relationship.

"Well, here comes the story that I'm officially telling you now, because Chris and I, when we made the film, we literally fell madly in love," Seymour confessed to TCM host Alicia Malone and an audience of several hundred classic movie lovers. "When you see this film, you will see the real thing. But we didn't let anyone know. So a few of the people who worked on the show kind of sussed it out, but we were as subtle as we could be about it."

Seymour has previously acknowledged her romance with Reeve, including on PeopleTV's Couch Surfing , which you can watch above. But she got into the particulars at the TCM festival, becoming visibly emotional when discussing their love for each other and the forces of the universe that broke them apart.

If the revelation of their romance wasn't enough of a case of art imitating life (or vice versa), Seymour also said their relationship ended the same day she filmed the scene in which her character, Elise, loses Reeve's Richard.

"We were madly in love and life was wonderful," she recalled. "We were both single; it was a fantastic, amazing experience. And then one day I came in to work [to film] one of the biggest scenes in the movie… Just before that, Chris had had an earlier call and I came in about half an hour later, and they said, 'Chris needs to talk to you about something.' I thought, 'That's really odd, we've had a long time to talk about things, so what could it be?'

"It was that he was about to have a baby, and that his ex-girlfriend hadn't told him, and that she'd just announced it to the world," Seymour continued. Reeve's ex, Gae Exton, was pregnant with their son, Matthew. (The two would go on to have a second child together, daughter Alexandra.)

But Seymour still had to complete the day's work after hearing this crushing news — filming a scene in which Elise is deliriously in love with Richard after they've made love for the first time, only to lose him to the vagaries of time.

"I then had to put my big-girl pants on," she said. "When I watch that scene, I can literally see the tears coming halfway up my eyeballs. And I just kept saying, 'You can't cry, you can't cry, you can't cry, you're happy. Elise is really, really happy right now.'"

Seymour and Reeve remained lifelong friends, which she recently discussed with EW while reflecting on her most memorable roles . She even named her son Kristopher after her former costar.

"The good part of the story is that Chris went on to have these two beautiful children and we met one another on many occasions," Seymour told the festival audience. "We remained really, really close friends, literally until the day he died. I have to believe that I will one day see him somewhere in time."

Now let me just find my box of tissues…

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SOMEWHERE IN TIME: Christopher Reeve’s Greatest Role Beyond SUPERMAN

Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 25, 2023 | 10 comments

A birthday tribute to one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors…

By PETER BOSCH

“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.” Richard II , Act III, Scene 2. — William Shakespeare.

A recent magazine about Superman through the ages titled the article on Christopher Reeve as “The Greatest of All Time.” No greater truth was ever spoken. Notice how that even though it has been 36 years since the last time Reeve was Superman (in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace , 1987), he still gets the predominant cover spot (plus another spot as Clark Kent.)

The Ultimate Guide to Superman. Published by Hollywood Spotlight, 2023.

Reeve, who was born 71 years ago, on Sept. 25, 1952, left behind too short a list of appearances on the big and small screens. His death at the age of 52 on Oct. 10, 2004, from cardiac arrest, following lengthy paralysis from the neck down brought on by a horse-riding accident in 1995, is a great tragedy.

Reeve had come from Broadway to define Superman onscreen (and proved to be a Superman in his personal life after the accident). His four appearances as Superman are a legacy but he also branched out to do a variety of other films, including Deathtrap (1982), Noises Off (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993). He also acted in two episodes of TV’s Smallville after his accident and in a TV remake of Rear Window (1998).

To me, however, my favorite Christopher Reeve performance, second only to that of Superman, was as Richard Collier, a modern day playwright who travels back to 1912 to meet the greatest love of his life in Somewhere in Time (1980), a film I consider the most romantic movie of all.

The origin of the film actually begins with famed author and screenwriter Richard Matheson during a trip when he was in the ghost town of Virginia City. To pass the time, he visited the Piper’s Opera House. He glanced through historical displays and stopped when he saw a photo of Maude Adams, a beloved stage actress from the turn of the century (her most famous role was being the first stage Peter Pan).

The photograph of Maude Adams at Piper’s Opera House that inspired Matheson.

Looking at the picture of the young actress, Matheson had the germ of an idea about a man who sees the photo and wants to go back in time to meet her. It got put on the backburner of Matheson’s imagination but was revived when he visited the majestic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. This is where he wanted to set the story. (The hotel is familiar to anyone who has seen the Marilyn Monroe movie, Some Like It Hot .)

The atmosphere of the hotel was one set in the past. In the history of great hotels, she was a grand duchess. Matheson returned to his idea and got himself into the character of Richard Collier by carrying around a tape recorder and speaking into it the preamble of the story prior to the trip back in time. At the Del, Matheson worked with staff to research the atmosphere of the hotel circa 1896 and the story grew and grew.  While he was tempted to have the female actress actually be Maude Adams, he wanted the character to have certain attributes of her own and so he created Elise McKenna.

Producer Stephen Deutsch read the book, titled Bid Time Return , and asked Matheson for the rights. Deutsch approached director Jeannot Szwarc, who had saved Universal’s bacon by agreeing to direct their Jaws 2 after the original director was fired. He agreed if they would give the greenlight to whatever project he wanted to do afterward. It was Somewhere in Time , the new title for Bid Time Return .  Christopher Reeve had his choice of roles after Superman: The Movie , but what he was being offered were action pictures. He didn’t want that and decided to do Somewhere in Time . Jane Seymour was signed to play Elise McKenna with Christopher Plummer as Elise’s manager, William Robinson.

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan

It was the first screen role Reeve took after Superman: The Movie and most of the filming was done on Mackinac (pronounced “Macinaw”) Island in Michigan, in and around the Grand Hotel there. The island is a special getaway where cars are not allowed and people travel by foot or by horse-drawn carriages. An exception was allowed for equipment trucks and for the scenes with Collier driving his car on the island.

“We began filming in late May 1979 and the location quickly cast a spell on the entire company,” Reeve said in his 1998 autobiography Still Me. “The real world fell away as the story and the setting took hold of us. I’ve rarely worked on a production that was so relaxed and harmonious.”

Various signatures of the Somewhere in Time cast and crew, most acquired during a 20th anniversary event held at Universal Studios.

Any synopsis of the screen story needs to express the deeply emotional performances of Reeve and Seymour (the love on screen between them also extended into their private lives), the sweeping music of John Barry (including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”), and the living recreation of 1912 at the hotel. The only way to do all that is through these 13 clips from the movie (all copyright Universal Studios):

Richard Collier at the opening night party of his college play in 1972:

Eight years later, while staying at the Grand Hotel, Richard sees Elise McKenna’s portrait for the first time:

Richard’s research into Elise McKenna’s history reveals a personal shock:

Using his will to transport himself to 1912:

“Is it you?”

Overcoming Elise’s worries about getting to know him:

Richard and Elise spend the afternoon together:

Elise goes off script to confess her feelings to Richard:

Director Jeannot Szwarc comments on the photo session scene, with Richard realizing the smile of Elise in the portrait was meant for him:

While Elise was still performing the play, Robinson had Richard kidnapped. Getting free from the ropes the next morning, Richard rushes back to the hotel only to find the stage company has gone:

SPOILER WARNING – The next three scenes reveal the dramatic ending of the film:

Richard and Elise have a playful meal together but it ends suddenly:

In the present, Richard rushes back to his room and tries vainly to will himself back to Elise in 1912:

Nothing can separate them again:

— 13 QUICK THOUGHTS: Why CHRISTOPHER REEVE Was the Greatest SUPERMAN Ever. Click here .

— CHRISTOPHER REEVE’s TOP 13 Non-SUPERMAN MOVIES. Click here

13th Dimension  contributor-at-large  PETER BOSCH’s  first book,  American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page ,  was published by TwoMorrows. He is currently at work on a sequel, about movie comics. Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.

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Author: Dan Greenfield

10 Comments

September 25, 2023

Good movie…shocking ending.

I loved this movie when it came out, I loved it when it played on cable fifteen years ago when my future husband was still out in California and hadn’t moved to me yet (we both watched it on cable that day!) and now that he is deceased the ending of the film holds a special poignance for me and I cannot bear to watch that scene.

Irony that his character winds up in a wheelchair.

Richard Collier doesn’t end up in a wheelchair.

If you have never been, the island is beautiful.

September 26, 2023

Ironic that his character’s last name is similar to that of Bud Collyer who did the voice of Superman on radio.

This is a wonderful film, and it was my late mother’s all-time favorite movie. She was a big fan of Reeve, which worked out for me, as I could always count on her to take me to see the Superman films. But what a great, heartfelt movie. Everyone is giving it their all. Thank you for spotlighting it.

September 27, 2023

Nice piece and a really great film.

December 10, 2023

I watched this film on cable when I was a 12 year old boy back in 1981 or so. I watched it solely because Reeve was in it and because my mom was watching it. I could barely tolerate dramas at that age much less a romance, but I watched the whole thing – the time travel aspect hooked me – and the ending blew me away. I loved it. I watched it again as an adult and was more aware of how swooningly romantically over the top it is, but I loved it just the same. That score!! That score! And the performances are fantastic. They commit to the romance and it just works. I read Matheson’s book also and loved that too. Thanks for this post.

March 19, 2024

I love this movie. It was penned mercilessly by the critics and was only in the theaters for a short time. But that was vindicated by the fans who watched it on cable and it became a cult classic. There’s a fan network, INSITE, which is dedicated to this film. They meet annually at the Grand Hotel in period garb to celebrate it. Reeve attended in 1994 before his accident.

INSITE got a star for Reeve on the walk of fame as well as pushed for a 20th anniversary DVD for the movie, which also culminated in a belated premiere for the movie in 2000, 20 years after it came out.

Reeve will always be Superman for me, and a super hero for all that he had done in his life, before and after his accident.

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You’ll Never Guess the Biggest ‘Somewhere in Time’ Fan! Jane Seymour Shares, Plus the Star Heads Back to Mackinac Island

“Come back to me.”

Fans still get chills when they hear that line delivered by Teresa Wright (starring as an elderly 19th century woman) as she hands a dashingly handsome Christopher Reeve that famous pocket watch in the opening scene of 1980’s beloved classic Somewhere in Time . Cue the movie’s theme song and the tears will come flowing.

The film was a gloriously romantic tearjerker that shared the time-travel love story of present-day Chicago playwright Richard Collier (Reeve) and the beautiful turn-of-the-century actress Elise McKenna ( Jane Seymour ). It was Reeve’s first film post his Superman role.

In present day, on a visit to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island , Michigan, Richard comes across the hotel’s Hall of History where he discovers a photograph of a beautiful woman who starred in a play at the hotel theater in 1912. It was Elise McKenna, and he becomes obsessed with learning more about her. Richard uses self-hypnosis to go 68 years back in time to meet her.

Fans of Seymour and the movie have warmly greeted her back to Mackinac Island multiple times since, where she’s shared stories of filming, as well as her real-life love affair with Reeve.

Seymour Plans to Return to Mackinac Island

Seymour will return once again to the famed Grand Hotel from Tuesday, June 11 through Thursday, June 13, 2024, but this time she also will be focusing on her current series Harry Wild , which is making its season premiere on May 13 on the streaming service Acorn TV (along with a co-premiere on BBC America ). The event is titled “On the Case With Jane Seymour.”

“Instead of just talking about Somewhere in Time , which they do every October for Somewhere in Time enthusiasts, which I can’t do this year because hopefully I’m filming, they are doing something with Harry Wild ,” Seymour tells us. “We thought it’d be a perfect place to talk about some of my new ventures, as well. But it’s a beautiful, beautiful hotel. A great place to go.”

Packages are already available for fans. You can enjoy a special screening and Q&A session on Harry Wild , and a meet-and-greet with Seymour, along with surprises from the Harry Wild cast and crew members. In addition, an autograph session with Seymour and a 1920s-themed cocktail reception are planned, along with a “Movies on Mackinac” lecture with resident historian Bob Tagatz.

Seymour’s Fondest Film Memories

As for what Seymour remembers enjoying about filming Somewhere in Time , she tells us it was everything. “It was the happiest and ultimately the saddest experience filming ever in my life. Christopher Reeve and I, the chemistry was just palpable, and everything you saw onscreen ended up being very real. We kept it secret for many years, but we fell madly in love making that movie and remained very, very close friends until literally the day he died.”

The film remains an extremely important part of Seymour’s life, and she’s made the trip to support her fan base and the hotel over the years.

As for the biggest Somewhere in Time fan …

“People stop me all over the world for Somewhere in Time . The biggest fan I ever met was General Colin Powell. He literally went crazy when he saw me, he went, ‘Oh, my God. Somewhere in Time ,’ and that was it. We were then talking for hours about everything in life, and then the next day we had breakfast together, and then every time I saw him in Washington, he’d cross the room. We became good friends completely because he was obsessed with this movie,” Seymour adds. “So, anyone who says to me it’s a chick flick knows that they are completely wrong. Men love this movie even more than women.”

Christopher Reeve (1952-2004)

Additional crew.

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 156

• 10 wins & 14 nominations total

• Richard Collier

• Dr. Virgil Swann
• Virgil Swann

• Kevin Healy

• Thurston Last (voice)

• Denny Gabriel

• Storyteller (voice)

• Alan Johnson

• Dr. Alan Chaffee

• Leonard (voice)

• Will Parker

• executive producer

• 16 episodes
• creative consultant

• board of director: World TEAM Sports
• production consultant (uncredited)

Personal details

• Christopher Reeve Foundation
• 6′ 4″ (1.93 m)
• September 25 , 1952
• New York City, New York, USA
• October 10 , 2004
• Mount Kisco, New York, USA (heart failure)
• Dana Reeve April 11, 1992 - October 10, 2004 (his death, 1 child)
• Children Will Reeve
• Parents F.D. Reeve
• Other works Commercial for the Internet Service Provider "World Online"
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 3 Print Biographies
• 2 Portrayals
• 8 Interviews
• 45 Articles
• 9 Pictorials
• 17 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia While Reeve was filming Somewhere in Time (1980) , the local theater decided to show his breakout hit Superman (1978) . Many Somewhere in Time cast members joined locals for the event. Early into the screening, the sound went out. Reeve, who was seated next to co-star Jane Seymour , stood up in the audience and delivered all the lines.
• Quotes Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.
• Trademarks Black hair and light bold blue eyes
• Salaries Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ( 1987 ) $6,000,000

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Why Zack Snyder’s Superman Was So Underpowered

Zack Snyder's take on Superman drew heavily from the Man of Steel comic, which relaunched Superman and depowered him.

• Superman, introduced in 1938, is the inspiration for many cinematic adaptations showcasing incredible feats of strength by various actors.
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• The evolution of the Superman character in comics and films has led to different interpretations, each with its own unique strengths and limitations.

Superman was the superhero that kicked off the concept of the superhero when he debuted in the comics back in 1938 and then kicked off the superhero movie genre in 1978 with Superman: The Movie . That only made it fitting for Superman, the character, to be the starting point for Warner Bros. plans for a shared DC Cinematic Universe to rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 2013's Man of Steel , directed by Zack Snyder , introduced a new take on the Last Son of Krypton.

Played by Henry Cavill in 2013's Man of Steel , 2016's Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice , both 2017's Justice League and 2021's Zack Snyder's Justice League , and 2022's Black Adam , audiences saw Cavill's Superman pull off some incredible feats of strength. He fended off a Kryptonian invasion, fought villains like Doomsday and Steppenwolf, and brief faceless cameos in movies like The Flash showed he was even able to deal with a volcano. This is why it might shock viewers to know that despite Cavill's incredible build and the task his Superman accomplished, he is not the most powerful take on the character. In fact, on film, he might be on the weaker versions, and this was designed by the creators.

Every On-Screen Version of Superman

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Henry Cavill's Superman Compared To Others

Superman on tv.

Due to the limits of the television budget, it is safe to say that Cavill's Superman has shown incredible feet of strength compared to Dean Cain's Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman or Tom Welling's young Clark Kent in Smallville , yet it can certainly be said that Tyler Hoechlin's Superman on Superman & Lois is certainly pretty powerful and likely on par with Cavill's take on the hero. However, when compared to past Superman film depictions, Cavill's Superman doesn't appear to be as strong.

Brandon Routh's Superman is nothing to sleep on. He fights another Superman from the Arrowverse, one played by Tyler Hoechlin in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. This is also nothing compared to the DC Comics version of Superman, be it the character from the Silver Age to DC Rebirth, where his powers seem immeasurable.

Superman in Movies

First, there is Christopher Reeve's version of Superman , who moves so fast that he is able to travel in time. There is debate on whether this is Superman literally moving the Earth's rotation backward, causing time to reverse, or if Superman is traveling so fast he is able to travel through time similar to the Flash. Regardless of the answer, that is an incredible display of power from the first feature film Superman. This is by design, as when Superman: The Movie came out in 1978, Superman's status in the comics had grown to an extreme level of power that would force DC to reset in order to give his stories tension. However, in 1978, Superman, the character, was known as an all-powerful hero, so it makes sense that this live-action depiction is able to accomplish near-impossible feats.

Routh's Superman is supposed to be the same Superman that Christopher Reeve played, but since Superman Returns was released in 2006, and after the comics had made efforts to put limits on Superman's powers, the movie has to balance fitting within the canon of the prior films while also fitting in new comic book developments.

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He is not only able to stop a Boeing 77 plane, but later in the film, he lifts a yacht out of the ocean. In the film's epic climax, he lifts an entire alien content that Lex Luthor has grown on Earth up out of the ground and sends it into space. Even though the landmass has a Kryptonite core, one that eventually starts to impact Superman, he is able to remove it from the planet's atmosphere. While he does "die," unlike Cavill's Superman, Routh's version doesn't stay dead for long and returns without the need for a Mother Box.

Superman Movies in Order: How to Watch Chronologically and by Release Date

Cavill's Superman does have the disadvantage of seemingly appearing weaker just because of how many more physical foes he has to fight. For example, General Zod and Doomsday are actually able to hurt Superman, but Reeves' Superman also deals with physical threats like his own version of General Zod, as well as Nuclear Man in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace . So far, all the cinematic incarnations of Superman pale in comparison to most people's idea of what the character can do in the comics.

Man of Steel's Title Might Indicate Why Cavill's Superman Is Underpowered

In 1985, DC published Crisis on Infinite Earths . Crisis on Infinite Earths was a massive 12-issue epic that served two purposes. The event allowed DC to reboot its entire universe. More importantly, it allowed them to tell new origin stories for their classic characters, updating them for modern audiences. When it came to Superman, they saw it as a chance to jettison some concepts that had been introduced to the character over the years. Characters like Supergirl and other Kryptonian characters were dropped to restore Superman's status as the last of his kind.

Written and drawn by John Byrne, Man of Steel was a six-issue miniseries that launched in July 1986. Man of Steel became the dividing point between the Silver Age of Comics and the Modern Age, often referred to by fans as Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis. One of the biggest hallmarks of Bryne's new Superman was deescalating his powers. Superman would still have many of his iconic abilities, but they also wanted to place limitations on him to give his story a sense of suspense with more obstacles for him to overcome. This was the character's origin until 2003's Superman: Birthright , and there would be a limit on his powers until Superman's resurrection following his death.

Is Superman Immortal or Will He Eventually Die of Old Age?

Man of Steel , the 2013 film, looked to do something similar with the character of Superman that the comic of the same name did in 1986. Not only did it adopt many elements from Bryne's take on the character, including the depiction of Krypton as a society moving more towards scientific breeding as opposed to natural birth. Man of Steel the comic also informed the creative intent for Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. Man of Steel film. It wanted to relaunch Superman for a new modern audience and make him more relatable. Maybe this is why the film has the exact same name as the comic, as both an homage and a clear indicator that these are Superman stories for a new audience that looked to ground the character.

Unlike most live-action takes on Superman, Zack Snyder's version exists in a world filled with other superheroes , including gods and aliens. He is still considered the strongest in the franchise but has a greater curve to be graded on than the likes of Christopher Reeve or Brandon Routh. At the end of the day, though, he is still Superman, which makes him one of the strongest heroes in fiction. It just appears Zack Snyder drew from DC Comics history and lore to feature a less overtly overpowered take on the hero. With James Gunn's Superman drawing heavily from comics that showcase Superman at the top of his power, like All-Star Superman and A Superman for All Seasons , it will be interesting to see how he stacks up against the rest.

Jane Seymour, Christopher Reeve 'fell madly in love' during 1980 film

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Romance was certainly in the air during the filming of the 1980 drama “Somewhere in Time.”

Jane Seymour revealed that she “fell madly in love,” both on- and off-screen, with her co-star Christopher Reeve. While the 71-year-old had previously touched upon the strong friendship she had with Reeve in the past, she is just now getting candid about their love affair.

“Well, here comes the story that I’m officially telling you now, because Chris and I, when we made the film, we literally fell madly in love,” Seymour said at the TCM Classic Film Festival over the weekend.

While chatting with TCM host Alicia Malone, the “Wedding Crashers” star got emotional talking about her relationship with the late “Superman” actor while filming the time-travel movie.

“When you see this film, you will see the real thing,” she said. “But we didn’t let anyone know. So a few of the people who worked on the show kind of sussed it out, but we were as subtle as we could be about it.”

“We were madly in love and life was wonderful,” Seymour continued. “We were both single; it was a fantastic, amazing experience.”

She then noted that their relationship came to a halt at the same time she filmed a scene where her character, Elise, and Reeve’s Richard lose each other after the latter wakes up in his own time period.

She explained what went down that fateful day that led to their split: Seymour received the shocking news that Reeve was expecting a baby with his ex-girlfriend the same day the actors were to shoot the love scene as well as a breakup scene.

“And then one day I came into work [to film] one of the biggest scenes in the movie… Just before that, Chris had had an earlier call and I came in about half an hour later, and they said, ‘Chris needs to talk to you about something.’ I thought, ‘That’s really odd, we’ve had a long time to talk about things, so what could it be?'” she recalled.

“It was that he was about to have a baby, and that his ex-girlfriend hadn’t told him, and that she’d just announced it to the world,” the “Fifty Shades of Black” actress said.

Reeve and his ex, Gae Exton, had a son named Matthew around the time of filming. The disability activist and the modeling executive stayed together until 1987 and also welcomed a daughter, Alexandra.

Seymour joked that she had to “put my big-girl pants on” to shoot and had “tears coming halfway up my eyeballs” when she shot heartbreaking scenes.

“And I just kept saying, ‘You can’t cry, you can’t cry, you can’t cry, you’re happy. Elise is really, really happy right now,'” she said.

Reeve died in 2004 at the age of 52 after suffering from cardiac arrest. Seymour and the “Village of the Damned” actor stayed good friends over the decades up until his passing.

Her son Kristopher is even named after her late friend.

“The good part of the story is that Chris went on to have these two beautiful children and we met one another on many occasions,” Seymour said during the festival. “We remained really, really close friends, literally until the day he died. I have to believe that I will one day see him somewhere in time.”

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