5 MINUTE MOVIE GUY

Today, July 11th, 2025, marks the much anticipated return of both Superman and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Two very different franchises that share at least some minor connection, as I’ll explain momentarily. James Gunn’s reboot of Superman arrives today in theaters, kick-starting a new era for the DC Universe. The previous run of movies for DC Comics, known collectively as the DC Extended Universe, came to an end in 2023 after an often troubled and tumultuous ten years. Gunn’s new Superman (2025) aims to put those previous problems in the past, and early reviews for the film are looking quite positive. Perhaps a fresh start will be just what DC needs. Meanwhile, the Tony Hawk series returns with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, a remake of the 3rd and 4th games combined (much like 2020’s hit remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2). For nearly a whole decade, this popular franchise released a new hit game, year after year. But after losing its original developer, Neversoft, the Tony Hawk games entered a long and persistent period of turmoil, and would not rise back to relevance until the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, a return to form with a remake of the classic games that had once reshaped the gaming world. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 looks to continue that trend, remaking a couple more fan favorite games from the franchise.

Now what does Superman have to do with Tony Hawk, you may be asking? Well, not all that much, to be honest, but there are a couple notable connections. For instance, the Kickflip Superman (shown below) has been a special trick in the series since it debuted with Steve Caballero in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. During this trick, the skater reaches out with their skateboard and extends their body in a pose similar to Superman taking flight, before returning the board to their feet to land it.

Additionally, the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (1999) features a song called “Superman” by the band Goldfinger, which was made popular by the success of the game. The song itself is so synonymous with the Tony Hawk series that the recent documentary about the making of the games is actually named after the lyrics from that song. The film is called Pretending I’m A Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story (2020). It’s a fitting title for Tony Hawk, the pro skater who took flight from a half-pipe and defied gravity to become the first person to ever land a 900 (a term for landing a 900-degree spin rotation, or 2 and a half spins in a single jump). While he may not be super-powered, Tony Hawk has certainly taken flight like Superman while catching big air on his skateboard throughout his long and accomplished career.

Considering these connections, coupled with the new Superman movie and new Tony Hawk game both sharing a release date, it feels like a missed opportunity to not bring the two of them together. So for that reason, I have planned a virtual watch party, and you’re all invited to join. Today at 5pm PST, I’ll be hosting a watch party weekend event in my Discord server where we can all come together to watch Pretending I’m A Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story. The documentary is streaming for free on Tubi, so it is entirely free to watch (with ads), and you don’t even need to make an account! This isn’t anything fancy, just a place for some friends to get together in a chatroom and watch a movie at the same time. If you’re interested in joining, here is a link to the official 5 Minute Movie Guy Discord!

After the event, I’ll be heading over to Twitch to stream Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, as part of my Tony Hawk’s Quarter-Life Grind marathon. For those of you that don’t know, I’ve recently started streaming video games on Twitch, and I decided to begin my journey by playing through all of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games. This massive marathon is meant to serve as a tribute to 25 years of Tony Hawk games, while leading up to the release of the new game. I’m playing through 18 different Tony Hawk games, as well as 3 spin-off games that use the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game engine, and then in addition to those, I will be playing 4 other skateboarding games released within the same era, to bring the game total up to 25 games in all. Today is Day 25 of that journey. I’ve already played through the first 5 Tony Hawk games on Twitch (they’re being slowly added to YouTube in case you missed them), but am now going to be jumping the list to play the brand new game that releases today. But before all that begins, I’ll be going to my local theater to see the new Superman movie on the big screen, and hopefully you’ll all check it out this weekend as well. I hope to see some of you tonight in my Discord so we can watch this Tony Hawk documentary together. Once again, I plan to watch it at 5:00pm PST. It’s only 71 minutes long, so it’s a short watch. Afterwards, I’ll head over to Twitch to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 for the remainder of the night as I continue my daily streaming grind. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you there!

5 Minute Movie Guy
7.11.25