It's one thing to have power and weight in popular culture as a person, but it's quite another for a fictional character and/or intellectual property to have such power. Where individuals can easily wear out their welcome, characters and properties have the ability to be evergreen, provided the creators and artists behind them treat them well. It is usually never a good thing to assume the ubiquity of a property; Although almost every musician and TV show has a dedicated, even vocal, fan base these days, the Internet has allowed such niche groups to flourish while the general public never hears about the things these fans are raving about. However, there are a select few characters in the media who are so well known that they need little or no introduction. The DC Comics superheroes Superman and Batman are two of those characters. Sure, many people these days are familiar with former B-list characters like Iron Man, Black Widow, and Captain Marvel, but Superman and Batman were well-known even before the comic book boom.

The trailer for the latest cinematic iteration of the adventures of Kal-El or Clark Kent, Superman, hit the web today. and it's a fantastic encapsulation of the tone and creative goals writer/director James Gunn has for not only the film itself, but DC Studios as a whole. Despite the radical optimism the trailer shows, along with all the glimpses of other characters and moments in the clip, there's one aspect of the teaser that might be the most surprising of all: the trailer doesn't have a title card. Ending with the DC Studios logo and release date, the trailer never reveals the name of the film. The choice is less of a gamble and more of an audacious idea, one that not only exudes confidence about the film, but recalls a similar gambit taken by Tim Burton and company in 1989. as seen in the first Batman teaser trailer.

Unlike the typical assembly line of Hollywood marketing machines, Gunn tried to work closely with editors on the construction of the Superman trailer. At the launch and Q+A event held at the Warner Bros. lot that I attended on Monday, Gunn made sure to give a shout-out to associate editor Ben Stringfellow for putting together the teaser that Gunn "will be showing all the visitors who come to set". while the film was being shot, and this clip was the director's "true north" to work on the now-released teaser trailer. However, when it came to leaving the title card at the end, Gunn's response was more nonchalant when asked about the choice:

"I don't know. It just felt good. That was the other. We attended these trailers and they did all this testing and so on. I believe in testing, I believe in the testing process. And we tested, we “I've already tested, but it's also like you have to go with your guts and what's right. I have the tightest guts, which means I'm the one who likes the least things when they come together, so it seems to work.

Of course, leaving the title card of a highly anticipated film from a well-known director based on a character that has been featured in dozens of films, television shows, animated series and other media for nearly a century doesn't sound very brave on paper. Still, in the current landscape of movie marketing, it feels like a pretty bold choice, if for no other reason than it helps the teaser (and subsequently the movie) stand out from the crowd.

What may have "just felt good" to Gunn about leaving the title card off the Superman teaser can be attributed to how the trailer doubles as a proof of concept for both the film itself and the future of DC Studios as a whole. In other words, the teaser is not just an ordinary teaser for a new film, but is also an artistic and aesthetic mission. This sort of thing has been done before under duress, like with Burton's Batman teaser. That production famously had to deal with Pre-release controversy surrounding the casting of Michael Keaton as The Dark Knightand it took rushing a teaser trailer into theaters (while the movie was still being shot) in order to allay fears that the director and Beetlejuice star weren't making another Batman TV-style comedy.

However, one doesn't have to go to Gotham City to see what might have influenced Gunn in the Superman teaser, as the trailer and marketing campaign for Richard Donner's 1978 Superman takes a very similar approach of acknowledging the The Man of Steel. importance in building anticipation for his appearance in full glory. The film's posters often featured an "S" shield logo, with the tagline "You'll believe a man can fly," promising the wonder audiences would experience with the film. The teaser trailer is almost entirely built around hype - there's no footage of the film itself, and it's structured around the film's incredibly stacked cast list. He almost leaves the title card in favor of the "S" shield, but the name "Superman" comes up briefly. Despite this, there's no doubt that Gunn wanted to pay homage to Donner's film with his teaser, even with composer John Murphy use some of the John Williams main cover theme icons (in addition to dropping the teaser just four days after the 1978 film's 46th anniversary).

While the 2025 Superman teaser is certainly an homage to the 1978 Superman, the net effect of the trailer is much closer to the 1989 Batman teaser. Both teasers have a great sense of anticipation and intrigue about them; "Batman" showcases the film's evocative aesthetic, while "Superman" promises a mix of the nostalgic and the excitingly new in its approach to the character. Even the respective trailer tags have an expected brevity: "Coming This Summer" and "This Summer, Begins."

The absence of a title card in both teasers only adds to the sense of anticipation. It makes the trailer feel kind of incomplete, leaving us wanting more. It's an effective technique, and when it comes to a teaser trailer, as Gunn alluded to, it just feels right. This past year, we've seen an impressive rise in movie trailers (especially teaser trailers) that have relearned the art of teasing, as opposed to aggressively (or desperately) throwing too much material into the audience too soon. Here's hoping "It Begins" has another meaning behind it: a return to the proper, old sci-fi trailer.

Superman will hit theaters on July 11, 2025.