Is Dark Knight Cursed?

NPR has a nice little story about the emerging superstition that Dark Knight is cursed.

As detailed in the article, "cursed" plays, movies, and general performance pieces are certainly nothing new. They cite Poltergeist, The Exorcist, and even The Crow as some of the movies that are reputed to have been "cursed" and/or had curses related to them (the death of father and son stars, Lee, for instance) - then they remind us about the greatest "cursed" piece of them all: Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The piece is interesting and well-written, but neglects to mention one important part of the "cursed" pop-culture. It's doubly embarrassing since it relates directly to Dark Knight on almost every level:

The "Curse" of Superman.

Since first brought to the cinema, deaths and misfortune have plagued the cast and sometimes the crew of the various Superman film incarnations. George Reeves leapt from a window in 1959. The actor who portrayed Supes before him supposedly never had another success in his acting career. And, of course, Christopher Reeve was famously paralyzed, following a fall from a horse.

However, like many of the other supposed "curses," much of the hype surrounding the Superman Curse is just this side of truthful.

George Reeves did not leap to his death. In fact, there is no evidence that he committed suicide, even though it was officially ruled such. After all, suicides rarely miss - and almost none of them miss several times. Reeves actually died from a gunshot to the head. The fact that the "went crazy and thought he could fly" story became so widely circulated and generally accepted proves a good, old-fashioned Hollywood cover-up - right up there with the Black Dahlia and that guy on William Randolph Hearst's boat, in fact.

Bud Collyer portrayed Supes on the popular radio show in the 30s and 40s. He went on to host the popular game show, To Tell the Truth, and lived to a fairly good age of 61.

The creators of the character, Siegel and Schuster, were bilked of their fortunes, but a recent court ruling holds DC Comics liable for the fair compensation of their families. Christopher Reeves was paralyzed due to an unrelated horsing accident, but both Tom Welles (Smallville) and Dean Cain (Lois and Clark) have healthy careers.

Dark Knight has been plagued by a string of incidents - Heath Ledger's death, Christian Bale's (possible) arrest, and now Morgan Freeman's divorce and car wreck - but, as the above indicates, Superman has a better claim to the "cursed" label, and there's really little truth to that. Besides, Bale portrayed Bats in an earlier flick and Freeman and his wife have been separated for over a year.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008