Released in 2002, Road to Perdition might be on of Tom Hanks’ best film roles. Based on the DC Comics graphic novel of the same name. the film is set during the Great Depression and follows Hanks’ mob enforcer Michael Sullivan and his son as the pair seek vengeance against a mobster who murdered their family. The film featured a star-studded cast that includes Jude Law, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig, and Jennifer Jason Leigh as well as the final live-action theatrical performance from Paul Newman. The movie, which earned Newman a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, arrives on Peacock April 1st.
Road to Perdition Has a Surprising Connection to Superman (That Has Nothing to Do With the Comics)
Road to Perdition is a truly fantastic movie. Not only is it beautifully made — cinematographer Conrad L. Hall was posthumously awarded the Best Cinematography Oscar for his work on the film — but it tells a powerful story. The trip that Hanks’ Sullivan takes his son Michael on is as much about dealing with what happened to their family as it is about getting young Michael away from this violent world. There are themes of not just the consequences of violence, but the complicated relationship between fathers and sons.
While Road to Perdition did well both with critics and at the box office, the thing that might be most interesting about the movie now, 24 years later, is its surprising connection to a major comic book character that actually has nothing to do with comics. The role of Sullivan’s son Michael was played by Tyler Hoechlin. The movie was one of Hoechlin’s earliest film roles and even earned him a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer nomination. Hoechlin would go on to play Clark Kent/Superman 14 years after Road to Perdition’s release, first on The CW’s Supergirl and then on Superman & Lois. The two roles have no connection — Road to Perdition is a crime comic while Superman is, well, superheroes, but it makes for an interesting throughline in Hoechlin’s career.
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