Christopher Reeve's children have revealed they have not seen The Flash and were not involved in approving the CGI Superman cameo in the film.
Will, Matthew, and Alexandra Reeve stopped by the Variety studio to discuss Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, a new documentary exploring the life and work of their late father. All three confirmed they had not watched The Flash and were not involved with the movie's digital recreation of the Superman actor.
1984's Supergirl movie spin-off arrived during Christopher Reeve's tenure as the big screen's Man of Steel, and it acknowledged that Helen Slater's Kara Zor-El was Kal-El's cousin. However, the two Kryptonians never shared the screen until The Flash. A digital recreation of Reeve's Superman appeared alongside Slater's Supergirl in one of the worlds depicted during the film's climactic Chronobowl sequence.
The cameo sparked some anger among fans, with many speculating that Reeve would have loathed the lingering shot of his Superman, whom he played in four films in the '70s and '80s, beginning with 1978's Superman: The Movie. Multiple interviews resurfaced of Reeve, who died at 52 in 2004, sharing his distaste for taking recurring roles for a paycheck, prioritizing the "integrity of your work."
While Reeve's portrayal of Superman was a large part of his legacy, Will Reeves revealed that it wasn't the role that his late father was most proud of. He identified his turn as Congressman Jack Lewis in the 1993 film adaptation of Remains Of The Day as the one that would stand out to him, even though it wasn't "a big role."
"In our hometown in Bedford, New York… the local movie theater went through a rebrand a few years ago," Will said. "The person in charge of that shift reached out to me and said they'd love to have me screen a film of my choice of my dad's. I responded, 'Sure, but not Superman. We're going to do Remains of the Day.' He was so proud of his role in that movie. It's not a big role. It's an important role in the film.
"He got to show a completely different side of himself," Reeves continued. "I knew how proud he was of that. Not that he wasn't proud of Superman, but if he were here, he wouldn't choose Superman, he'd choose Remains of the Day."
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, but it doesn't have a wide release date yet.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X @AdeleAnkers.
