The Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood is a hallmark of the storied film lot, an entertaining and educational tour through the cinematic history of one of the film industry’s most enduring companies. The Tour has leaned increasingly into immersive experiences in recent years, with events celebrating everything from Friends and Gilmore Girls to the heroes and villains of the DC Universe. Their latest addition leans heavily into that, with The Superman Experience serving as a massive ode to the Man of Steel.
As part of the formal tour, The Superman Experience moves visitors through a series of immersive motion-capture challenges, turning them into superheroes who come to the aid of Superman during a global catastrophe. Afterwards, visitors get the chance to explore a Fortress of Solitude set full of easter eggs and a themed cafe. During an interview with ComicBook.com, Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood Vice President and General Manager Danny Kahn reflected on how The Superman Experience brings a more immersive touch to the iconic film lot, the importance of representing the future of DC alongside the history of the character, and how the experience will adjust to accommodate future films.
CB: How do you approach creating something expansive like The Superman Experience that appeals to hardcore fans and broader audiences alike?
Danny Kahn: The experience, the lounge, the retail store, the Fortress, it all just came together. It’s a good place to be. Those drinks [at the bar], they glow and bubble over and smoke. You want to be in the lounge… If you’re casual or a diehard fan, I think that there’s something for you in all touch points of the attraction. I love that. The tour itself really has something for everybody. If you’re a casual fan of any of our shows or a cinephile and you want to go deep down the rabbit hole, it’s still fun experience for everybody.
It’s just fun to be on a movie lot! It’s really fun to drill down and get into all the nitty-gritty and get into the history and the backstories. It’s no different with [The Superman Experience]. We took a similar approach in the fan payoff and wanted to have something that casual fans would enjoy. It’s a fun game and a cool, immersive environment.
CB: What’s the process of incorporating something like The Superman Experience into the established Warner Bros. Studio Tour?
Danny Kahn: The first exhibit on the tour is really a broad learning experience of Warner Bros. It’s rooted in discovery. Then we lean into what’s coming up with the tour guide and trips to the screen stage 40, which is the filmmaker’s journey. Then, the last beat is immersion. We wanted people to feel like they’re in the Bat-Cave or that they’re in scenes from Harry Potter. I think The Superman Experience is the next level of that. You’re in the stories as you’re going through the five game pods. You’re really immersed in the Fortress of Solitude, with all the minigames and easter eggs and even the menu in the lounge.
Everything really is about that next level of immersion and being able to step into that world… The filmmakers geek out on the history. Fans love it all. I love that this is our first attraction like this and that it’s in James Gunn’s world. I think he’s such a talented filmmaker, and I think he and Peter Safran are such incredible partners. It’s such a great opportunity because it’s such a great property that has such a long life to it. We really do have a chance to play with it and update it, to have easter eggs and continue to grow as Gunn continues to tell stories. I’m looking forward to what he and the team at DC are going to do next. I’m like, ‘How do we put this in the Fortress? How do we add that to the game?’
CB: Are there any plans to update and tweak the expeirence to reflect other upcoming titles?
Danny Kahn: I think when it comes to the seasonal beats here, the opportunities to do overlays and updates will be easy to do in an environment like this. We don’t have to build new sets or anything. These are content pushes. We really do have a lot of opportunities to embrace that whole world and do updates as they come along the path. I can’t wait. Like, I’m a huge Peacemaker fan. That’s always one of my questions. How do we get a Peacemaker cameo?! [Laughter].
I think that, as this world further evolves, I can’t wait just to take moments and put them on in the game. Even Supergirl — Kara wasn’t part of the original storyline for The Superman Experience. We added her kind of late in the game. So that is part of what we’re planning to do: add more characters and give fans an extra reason to come back. Try to beat your high score, but also see what else we’re doing over here.
CB: What was the origin story for The Superman Experience? Was it the WB Studio Tour approaching DC and their team, or the other way around?
Danny Kahn: We knew we wanted to do something experiential. We saw that there was softening production [schedule on the Warner Bros. lot], and there’s an opportunity to use these sound stages for a different purpose. Rather than seeing this place get developed into something else that it’s not supposed to be, it can become something celebratory. I think it’s the timing of things a little bit. We knew Superman was on the horizon [when we started]. We had two years in development. We wanted to do something, and we were getting excited about DC and what Peter and James were doing. It made total sense to me to lean into Superman. That was the catalyst for all of this. We wanted an attraction that could potentially be scalable and start here on the lot, but also germinate into secondary markets. So a big portion of the investment is in the content that we’re seeing.
So it’s easy to enhance our profitability and have scalability with attractions like this by looking at secondary markets. That was one of our priorities for this: being able to proliferate and spread it. I think it’s just neat. We have the studio tour that is about seeing everyday life on the lot, but also a chance to look back. You go on to a 90-year-old stage, and then you have this, which is what the company is producing next. That’s one of our values as a company. I love it that we have the opportunity to do this and bring it to the public and study it here on the lot. I think that’s another reason why it’s just so nice to have here, because we do have all the talent here, the filmmakers, storytellers. So it’s nice to germinate projects like this right here in Burbank.
CB: Any creative project demands a lot of the team behind it, and I know that expectations can shift during production and development — the finished product rarely looks exactly like the original ideas. What would you say surprised you the most about how The Superman Experience evolved from original conception to final product?
Danny Kahn: How immersive it is and how much your heart feels involved in what’s on the screen and in the surroundings. I wasn’t expecting it to really take me by the heart as it did. I think it’s a little bit about the fact that you’re in the experience, you’re doing a physical exertion for the first portion of it, you really feel endorphins, and that’s something that I didn’t really kind of like hone in on. Because of that, it feels a little bit like a roller coaster ride, but with the freedom of being able to move around. Then you have the nice balance that you have with the scavenger hunt in the Fortress, then rewarding yourself with the drink in the Lounge, I think that it’s the immersion, that it’s the level of immersion that surprised me the most, I think — that and that we got it done in time [Laughter].
You’re 100% right in something like this. You have to have so much faith and confidence in your co-workers and the people that you’re working with, because it really does take a village to make something like this. It all came together at the end. Even a couple of weeks ago, we were biting our nails thinking, ‘Are we going to get to this point where this is ready to open?’ But that’s how these projects come together. It is a lot of trust and faith in one another. You do see the evolution of it get better and better each day.
The Superman Experience is currently open for visitors to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour.
