Mission: Hollywood - You will believe a franchise can be reinvented.

Got your wallets out, movie fans? Because Warner Bros. has dropped one big $260 million-and-that-doesn’t-include-marketing dime betting that you’re ready to take a baseball bat to the glass-enclosed box office ticket window of your choice because they’re just not opening fast enough for you to see Superman Returns before all of your friends do today.

So on this momentous occasion when records will be broken and studio executives will rub their hands together in greedy delight, let us take a look at today’s Mission: Hollywood - Hey la, hey la, your Kal-El’s back:

It’s truly fortunate that Superman Returns star Brandon Routh can claim a similar upbringing to that of his red-bootied character. Otherwise, we’d never get MDD (Marketing Department Dreamy) opportunities like this one in which Routh attends a special hometown premiere of his movie. In Iowa. With his parents in attendance. Awww. But are we crazy to discern an underlying, soul-about-to-be-harvested-by-Hollywood menace implied when Routh answers a local reporter’s question about what he bought with his first movie paycheck? As a subtle darkness shadows his face, Routh replies, “You don’t make so much on the first one…We’ll get there, though.”

National Geographic News leaps with a single bound onto the Superman Hype Train, speculating about the real-world implications and possible sources of the Man of Steel’s amazing powers. Consulting with university physics professors, scientific writers and - naturally - actor Hal Sparks, they reach the conclusion that, yep, Superman is a fictional character.

It turns out that the nifty Supes-takes-a-bullet-to-the-eye bit so spoiltastically spoiled in the movie’s trailer was no small task to accomplish. As reported on the Risky Biz Blog, director Bryan Singer had to pass the hat around Warner Bros. to raise the $2.3 million that the effects shot was going to cost. Better check online before you head to the multiplex. Your bargain matinee ticket price just jumped to $78.95.

Movie counterprogramming alert! If you’re in New York City and the whole Codpiece of Steel thing isn’t your bag, why not check in with the high school hijinks of everyone’s favorite 47-year-old ex-con junkie whore Jerri Blank instead?

As pointed out by the comically on-the-spot folks at The A.V. Club Blog, there’s a whole lot to love in this animated anti-smoking PSA in which an uncomfortably Schwarzeneggerian Superman stops some kids from making a serious nicotine mistake. We can’t stop listening to the screams of terror and misery when Supes throws that guy about a mile and a half.

And once again, we celebrate a franchise reboot with a look back to where Superman’s cinematic legacy began. Take another look at this classic trailer from Superman The Movie, as notable for its stunning, dramatic beauty as it is for its delightful - yet sadly antiquated - minimalism.