Warner Bros. invites fans to fly with Superman
Every day, thousands of Californians commute to movie studio lots to make magic for audiences around the world. Now, at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, it’s possible to create some movie magic for yourself.
For years, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood has allowed fans to see and walk the soundstages where creative professionals have filmed so many beloved movies and television shows. Yet, just as you were at home, you remained a witness to what has happened on the Warner Bros. lot. Sure, the studio provided several photo ops so that you could feel – for a moment – what it’s like to stand on the other side of the camera. But you never got the chance to really become one of those characters.
Until now. Today, Warner Bros. previewed its first interactive experience on the studio lot – Superman Experience: Defenders Unite. A separately ticketed attraction, this Superman Experience gives fans the opportunity to feel like the Man of Steel and to share his powers, in a mission to save the world. (It opens to the public on Saturday.)
Superman Experience: Defenders Unite is a walk-through, gesture-driven, 3D screen-based interactive attraction. A specially marked tram drives you from the Studio Tour building to Soundstage 5, which houses the experience. (Spoilers follow.) Along the way, the Daily Planet podcast sets the scene, describing how objects dropping from portals in the sky are terrorizing the people of Metropolis.
Once at the soundstage, guests are grouped into teams of up to six players, then escorted into the preshow, set in the Fortress of Solitude. This might be a studio tour attraction, but theme park fans will know the drill. The world is in danger, and Superman needs our help to save it. Warner Bros. elevates that familiar set-up with some clever storytelling. [Update: Scroll down to the comments for further explanation why I like this narrative choice so much.]
“This is the Chaos Shard,” Superman tells us while pointing our attention to what looks like a giant crystal on screen. “It is a relic that will take what is best in you and give you powers like mine.”
We can fly and flight like Superman? Sign me up! Yes, it’s fan-service wish fulfillment, but isn’t a movie soundstage the exact place where fans’ wishes come true?
From there, we walk into the next room, where Gary from last year’s James Gunn “Superman” and his robot team will help us suit up and train for the battle to come. That battle will take us through four more scenes in three rooms, from the Kent family’s Kansas farm, back to the Fortress, on to the streets of Metropolis, and then into low Earth orbit.
Each room features screen walls forming a semi-circle. Just walk to your assigned spot and follow Superman’s instructions as you wail your arms to collect points and blow up the baddies.
The usual caveats about 3D screen attractions apply. Its future success will depend upon Warner Bros.’ ability to keep the projection crisp throughout. (But, for heaven’s sake, the studio forfeits all right to complain about theater operators in the future if it cannot.) This also is probably not the experience for people who get queasy when wearing 3D glasses. With more than 20 minutes of gameplay, Superman Experience delivers value for its $39 price ($29 for kids – and you can save about $15 by bundling with a Studio Tour reservation), but comes with the added cost of leaving your upper body burning if you’re not in shape for the repetitive motion.
That said, the endorphin rush of all that physical activity only amplifies the thrill of flying with Superman. And we do get to "fly." I enjoyed Warner Bros.’ creative choice to include some flying maneuvers with all the arm-waving shooting and throwing. It’s not only a nice break for the arms, but also a good call to allow all of us on the team to fly, instead of leaving that to just two among the six of us, up front.
(I don’t need to make that shade any more obvious, do I?)
Following our inevitable victory and score check, we exit into another Fortress scene. This post-show allows us to linger, playing fetch with the super dog Krypto and enjoying photo ops, including one with an animatronic Gary (built by the same team that created the puppet for the 2025 film). Photos are $18.99 a pop at the exit, or just use your phone for a Gary selfie.
The Fortress post-show also includes a Solar Lounge bar with themed drinks and snacks, though none of the menu offerings were available for us to sample today.
Solar Lounge menu
At the bar, I spoke with Danny Kahn, Vice President and General Manager of Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood. He told me that now that Warner Bros. has invested in the system and media for this attraction, that the company is looking at whether to bring it to its other studio tour locations around the world.
But only in Hollywood can Superman Experience visitors stand on the stage where Jimmy Olsen actor Skyler Gisondo once performed in “Everybody Loves Raymond.” (Stage 5 also was the original, season one, stage for the long-running series “Friends.”)
I don’t see Warner Bros. installing roller coasters or flat rides on its studio lot anytime soon. Nor should it. But I am happy to see the studio finding new ways to tell stories through new experiences on its iconic lot. Superman Experience is a good start to what I hope will be an engaging new chapter of storytelling for Warner Bros.
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Replies (4)
This looks Lovely.
I am in my chair leaning Left, right....
It would be nice if the endings change - Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose....
(Robert needs to work on his punching technique) HAHAHAHAHA
Here is why I like the narrative set-up here so much.
First, "Chaos Shard" cannot possibly be the name of any positive MacGuffin. Sure enough, Darkseid reveals that he planted the shard on Earth to cause, well, chaos. After all, a thing that provides unlimited power to only a select few is sure to create social division, right?
But Superman is the eternal optimist. He reminds me of the boy who was given a room full of horse manure for his birthday, then gleefully starts shoveling through it, exclaiming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!" To Superman, the shard is not a threat but an opportunity. It's not a hazard to eliminated, but an asset to be protected as it can provide the good an opportunity to do great.
Like all great comic book stories, this provides a moral dilemma for debate. Is something like the Chaos Shard good or bad for humanity? WB didn't need to offer a philosophical debate when setting up an excuse for us to have super powers. But it did. And I appreciate that.
This feels like something that should have existed years ago.
Back when it opened Warner Bros Movie World on the goldcoast did have a studio tour where one lucky selected guest did get to participate in a chromakey flying demonstration (back when most people didn’t know what it was, very different to now when anyone with a laptop and iPhone can do the same thing).
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This sounds moderately interesting, but probably not something we would seek out when we're in LA in a couple of months since we did the WB Studio Tour the last time we were in town (might do Paramount since that's the only legacy studio we haven't toured before).
I do think attractions like this are what will be needed to revitalize and drive interest in the traditional movie studio tour experience. I get the feeling that people just aren't interested in seeing the curtain peeled back on movie/TV production or aren't really impressed with it anymore because you can film Hollywood-quality movies with a device you carry around in your pocket (in fact some recent films have touted being completely filmed with iPhones). There are certainly aspects of modern production that would amaze even the most advanced technophiles (I would geek out if I got to stand on The Volume stage), but there just isn't much that most active studios would want to let people walk through that would impress folks who spend half their lives staring at a handheld screen with an ever-decreasing attention span. The cache of standing in the place where they filmed X, Y, and Z TV shows and movies just doesn't wow people anymore, and studios have to offer these shiny game-centric features to draw interest in their studio tours from the modern generation.
It is kind of interesting, because in a way USH was decades ahead of a trend that I see coming with more and more studios turning their tours into themed experiences with attraction-like elements instead of riding around in a golf cart with a tour guide pointing at closed doors and empty trailers where old movie stars used to mingle and hone their craft.