Smallville Reborn in the Style of James Gunn’s Superman

 

This trailer caught me off guard. A fan took Smallville, the WB series with all the teen drama trappings, and cut a new trailer in the tone of James Gunn’s Superman. The result? Smallville suddenly looks like the epic we never got but always wanted.

 Go watch it. Trust me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snrcbiOxeiQ

This thing hits different. The music is quiet. The colors are soft. The emotions land with weight. Clark’s struggle to balance destiny and family doesn’t feel like a plotline anymore. It feels like a real story. The trailer reframes Smallville not as a teen superhero show but as a character study about a boy who has to choose whether or not to become a symbol. That choice suddenly feels sacred.

Jonathan Kent becomes a quiet giant in this version. Lana is not just the girl next door. She’s the life he almost had. And Lex feels Shakespearean again. Every scene shown feels like a moment from a larger story with meaning, not just the weekly freak of the week. You can feel the influence of Gunn’s approach here. Everything is dialed into character. No posing. No quips. Just emotion and purpose.

There’s a moment in the trailer where Clark looks down at his hands, not in triumph but in fear. It’s fast but it stays with you. That one frame says more about the burden of power than any full episode ever did. That’s what makes this trailer work. It strips Smallville down to what it should have always been. A grounded story about an alien learning how to be human.

And that music. That pacing. It’s not selling you a show. It’s inviting you into a story. It reminds you that Superman’s power is not flight or strength or heat vision. It’s restraint. It’s choosing kindness. It’s choosing not to give up when the world gives you every reason to.

Watching this I realized something. Smallville always had this greatness inside it. We just needed someone to edit away the noise and show us the heart. This trailer does that. It’s not just a new cut. It’s a new lens. And once you’ve seen it this way, you can’t go back.

We say it all the time. The suit doesn’t make the hero. The cape doesn’t make the man. And sometimes the show just needs the right trailer to show you the story that was always there.