….
Superman Release | October 9, 2014
….
The crowd at AMC Century City 15 theater.
Max Henderson stood in line at the concession stand, watching teenagers in Superman t-shirts take selfies near the promotional standees.
A kid, maybe seven years old, wore a cape that dragged on the floor behind him. His mother tried to keep him from running into people while he pretended to fly.
Max moved like he was in foreign soil in the middle, who is clueless about how to watch a film in theatre.
He filled the digital ticket in mobile showing:
Theater 8, Seat D-12. 7:00 PM showing.
He was forty-three years old, and this was the first opening night film he had attended in nearly a decade.
The last one had been... what?
The memory existed as a vague impression rather than concrete detail - sitting in a theater, watching something that was supposed to excite him, feeling absolutely nothing.
He wasn't sure when exactly he had fallen out of love with movies. But that had been the moment he had realized something fundamental had broken inside him.
The ability to surrender to a story. To care about fictional people in impossible situations. To experience that electric sensation of witnessing something that made the real world feel smaller by comparison.
He had loved films once. Truly loved them. Not as a casual pastime but as a genuine passion that shaped how he understood the world.
He remembered being seventeen, sneaking into R-rated movies.
The electric feeling of sitting in darkness while stories played out larger than life, walking out of theaters feeling transformed, like he had experienced something that expanded the borders of his world.
Somewhere between seventeen and forty-three, that feeling had disappeared.
Films became background noise while eating microwaved dinners.
A way to consume two hours on weekends that felt increasingly purposeless. Spectacle without substance. Franchises designed by algorithm rather than artistic vision.
So why was he here? Standing in line with teenagers half his age, about to watch a superhero film - a genre he'd actively avoided - on opening night?
Max shifted the popcorn bucket and confronted the answer he had been circling all day.
Stephen Hawking.
That was it. The entire reason. His favorite actor.
The person who had first made him understand what screen presence actually meant, though the specific memory had faded into general impression.
What had been the first Hawking film he had seen in theaters? The title escaped him, but he remembered the feeling - watching someone command attention so completely that the rest of the world ceased to exist
Max had followed Hawking's career religiously through his twenties. Saw every film opening weekend. Read interviews.
Watched the award show hoping he would win. When Hawking retired a decade ago, Max remembered feeling genuine loss, like someone had taken away something precious.
And now he was back.
For a superhero movie.
The trailer had appeared everywhere for months, that voice, unmistakable, narrating over images of someone in a cape.
Max had watched it once on his laptop and felt something stir that he had thought was dead.
It wasn't enthusiasm, not exactly.
More like... curiosity?
Hope, maybe, that Hawking hadn't returned just to cash a paycheck.
But he had prepared himself for disappointment.
He'd prepared himself for disappointment. Hollywood had a pattern of using legendary actors to add false legitimacy to soulless blockbusters.
Stick a respected name on a poster to attract audiences, then waste them in nothing roles while the CGI did the actual work.
Max figured that's what this was. Stephen Hawking, reduced to 'supporting father figure' in some CGI-heavy mess designed to sell action figures.
He had still bought the ticket though.
Because even a 10% chance of seeing Hawking deliver one more great performance felt worth the risk of disappointment.
Even if the film was terrible, at least he'd see his favorite actor one final time before Hawking presumably retreated back into retirement for good.
….
Max entered Theater 8, finding his seat in the middle section.
He settled into D-12, setting his popcorn in the cupholder.
Two seats to his right were already occupied.
The dim lighting made it difficult to distinguish details, but he registered two people - both older, one wearing a baseball cap pulled low, the other with a scarf wrapped high despite the theater's almost aggressive heating.
Odd fashion choices, but Max immediately dismissed it as none of his business.
He wasn't here to people-watch. He was here for one person, and that person was going to be on screen, not sitting next to him.
Max pulled out his phone to kill the last few minutes before the trailers started.
That's when he heard them talking.
"Do you think Stephen swallows the entire film?" The man beside him spoke quietly, but in the pre-show murmur, his voice carried clearly to Max's ears. "That kind of presence tends to consume everything if nobody keeps it balanced."
"Only if the director allows it." The response came from the other person, and there was something peculiar about the voice. "From what I understand, that won't be the case."
Max found himself listening despite having no intention to eavesdrop.
"You're being generous," the first man said with a slight scoff. "When someone of his caliber walks on screen, audiences stop looking at anything else. Story architecture, pacing, thematic coherence - none of it registers if the balance tips wrong."
The implication hung in the air: he was suggesting Stephen Hawking might actually damage the film simply by being too good.
"I don't buy that." the man said. "The role is built to sit inside the story, not tower over it."
"Still." the first said, almost fondly annoyed. "Sometimes, that actor, Stephen, doesn't even need to try. He walks on screen and suddenly the audience forgets everything else."
There was a pause.
Then the second man chuckled, low and easy.
"That's the game, man. It's the director's job to make people forget everything except what's happening on the screen."
He leaned back slightly. "If the film is working, it shouldn't matter who the actor is, or even if he is sitting right next to you. You are still supposed to disappear into the story."
Max frowned.
Max frowned. First, he didn't appreciate how casually they were discussing his favorite actor. The tone felt almost disrespectful, like they were critiquing rather than appreciating.
Second, the comment struck him as absurd - even if the actor himself is sitting beside you?
That was impossible. No performance was that immersive. No film could make you forget that Stephen Hawking was literally three feet away.
But he let it go. Starting an argument over film theory with strangers before the movie even started would be pointless and embarrassing.
Besides, he had other concerns. Like the fact that he had virtually zero expectations for this film actually being good.
He wanted to be proven wrong.
Wanted this to be the thing that rekindled whatever had gone dormant in him over the past decade.
But realistically? Stephen Hawking coming out of retirement for a superhero movie felt like exactly what it probably was, a studio play.
He had heard a few things about this Regal... something.
Seraphsail? What kind of name was that? It sounded made up, like a fantasy novel character.
Regal Seraphsail. Ridiculous.
He had heard bits and pieces about this director - young, apparently.
Some kind of industry golden boy who had made it big fast.
Made the Spider-Man film that people wouldn't shut up about.
Max hadn't seen it, he hadn't cared to.
The only thing he knew about this Regal person was that he had somehow convinced Stephen Hawking to come out of retirement.
Which either meant the director was incredibly talented or incredibly persuasive.
Max figured he would find out which in about two hours.
And if the film turned out to be a disappointment, at least he would get to see his favorite actor on screen one more time.
That would have to be enough.
The lights dimmed further.
Conversations died down.
The kid with the cape several rows ahead sat down, finally, his mother's relieved sigh audible even from Max's seat.
Max put his phone away and settled back, trying to manage his expectations.
Don't hope for too much.
It's just a superhero movie.
Stephen Hawking probably has fifteen minutes of screen time total.
You are here for those fifteen minutes. The rest doesn't matter.
The MarvelDC logo appeared on screen, and than–
Complete darkness.
Wind howled across invisible plains - lonely, vast, infinite.
And then, cutting through the emptiness, a voice:
"This is the story of my son."
Max's head snapped to his right so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.
That voice.
That voice.
He knew that voice.
It was—
The man in G15 had gone very still, and even in the darkness of the theater, Max could see the slight tilt of his head, the way he had registered Max's reaction.
Their eyes met for just a second.
And Max knew.
Stephen Hawking Sr. was sitting right next to him.
Actually sitting there, in a public theater.
On the opening night, to watch his own film.
Max's brain short-circuited.
His mouth opened slightly, closed, opened again.
He must have looked like a complete idiot, but he couldn't help it.
His favorite actor, the reason he had fallen in love with movies in the first place, was literally right there, close enough to touch.
Stephen raised one finger to where his lips would be beneath the mask, a small gesture. A request.
Please don't mind me.
Max nodded quickly, almost frantically.
.
….
[To be continued...]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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