Composers: John Murphy, David Fleming
Label: WaterTower Music
Release Date: July 4, 2025
“I wake up every morning… and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other…”
Most film scores make us feel entirely new feelings.
This helps us remember how we used to feel, and asks if that still holds and if it can develop an grow.
The Frame
Superman (2025) skips the origin story entirely.
Clark is already Superman but he’s not settled. Not certain. He must defeat his arch-rival, Lex Luthor. Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant and Perry White at the Daily Planet assist in, an essential element of Superman’s story.
The score mirrors Superman’s instability.
Rather than replacing John Williams, Murphy and Fleming circle his 1978 theme, cautiously and deliberately, like they’re not sure they’re allowed to exist without it.
They don’t overwrite it.
They reshape it.
They build upon this and develop their own flavor around it.
What emerges lives in tension:
between legacy and identity.
The Listening
Headphones on.
No distractions.
Listen for:
- When the Williams theme appears
- How it’s stretched, softened, or interrupted
- The contrast between orchestral warmth and modern texture
- The space between cues
This isn’t about recognizing a theme.
It’s about hearing what happens when that theme won’t fully settle.
It takes on a new life at a pivotal moment of the theme, and shapes what we come to know as Superman’s theme in 2025.
The Key Tracks
1. Last Son
Swirling arpeggios open the Fortress of Solitude as Superman is restored.
Fleming nudges the Williams theme slightly off balance, however slightly. Not enough to break it, but enough to weaken its certainty.
It doesn’t arrive.
It searches.
This is your first signal:
this Superman isn’t fully formed.
2. Eyes Up Here
A fast, restless cue that never lets itself settle.
The motif doesn’t land cleanly as it’s cut, redirected, pushed forward.
This is where the score leans into Mickey Mousing, but keeps control of its identity.
Playful, but precise. An excellent accompaniment to comic book visual imagery and action.
You’re not just hearing action.
You’re hearing Superman soaring through the chaos.
3. Your Choices, Your Actions
The score strips back: acoustic guitar, soft ostinato, restrained strings.
The theme returns gently. Very carefully but remains present.
It keeps Superman quietly present, however subtle.
It questions him.
It keeps barely keeps him there as Clark takes center stage.
This is the emotional center of the score.
Not myth. Not spectacle.
Just a person, trying to hold shape.
The Format Shift
Streaming or Vinyl
Vinyl brings forth more body as the horns feel fuller, strings carry more depth, especially in quieter tracks like “Home.”
On streaming, the contrast between orchestral writing and modern textures feels sharper and sometimes harsher. The Mondo ‘All Star’ pressing is beautiful to look at, even more beautiful to listen to.
Track Order
Front-to-back listening matters.
The shifts in style aren’t random, I find them interestingly juxtaposed from one another. Structural.
Played passively, it can feel uneven.
Played attentively, it reveals intent, however tonally inconsistent it may appear.
Engagement
Vinyl always forces you to stay.
And this score needs that.
Not necessarily for sound quality but for continuity.
The Core
This score works because it doesn’t replace John Williams.
It circles him. It honors him. It builds upon him.
Every time the 1978 theme appears, it’s adjusted slightly off timing, softened, or interrupted before it can resolve, moving into Fleming’s development of this theme.
That tension is the score.
Emotion comes from contrast:
- Certainty vs hesitation
- Nostalgia vs reinterpretation
- Scale vs intimacy
It never fully settles onto the classic Superman theme, it always moves into the developed theme.
And that’s the point. Superman is who is always has been, in 2025.
This isn’t a classic Superman.
It’s a new one, that shifts between uncertainty and confidence. The score draws this out.
The Return Listen
On the ‘Return listen’, go straight to “The River Pi.”
Focus on the second half.
As the scene escalates, the music stops reacting and starts leading.
It’s one of those moments where the score transitions from’ following the film,
and begins to speak for it.
The Finer Details
Spend an hour with Kenny Holmes and Matt Schrader interviewing both David Flemming and John Murphy on their work in Superman (2025). Items to note:
- The strong insight into restraint and legacy recording/session discussions, particularly around theme adaptation.
- Recording/session discussions, particularly around theme adaptation.
The Deep Dive
Listen to Superman (2025) soundtrack HERE
Listen to the full soundtrack and sit with it. No skipping. No distractions.
The Connect
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