Superlópez

Superlópez is a 2018 Spanish superhero comedy film directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera, adapted from the comic character of the same name created in 1973 by the cartoonist Jan (Juan López Fernández). It stars Dani Rovira as Juan López, an accountant in Barcelona who secretly works as Spain's own Superman parody, alongside Alexandra Jiménez, Julián López, and Maribel Verdú as the villain Ágata Muller.¹ The film was a commercial success in Spain, grossing more than €12.5 million, and won the Goya Award for best special effects.¹

The comic character

Superlópez was created in 1973, when the editor Antonio Martín commissioned Jan to produce a Superman parody in the form of silent strips for the publisher Euredit. The character soon moved to the Bruguera magazines Tío Vivo, Zipi y Zape, and Mortadelo Gigante. In the late 1970s the short stories became full albums, with scripts by Efepé on the first ones, and in 1979 Jan took full control of the character with the chapter El día del robot.⁹

What began as an affectionate parody of the American superhero evolved into a series with one foot in satire and the other in everyday Spanish reality. Stories such as Los cabecicubos (1983), Los ladrones de ozono (1992), Monster Chapapote (2004), and Hipotecarión (2007) kept the humor while confronting politics, climate, housing, banks, and the press. Jan has said his favorite story is La caja de Pandora, while fans often point to Los cabecicubos, La gran superproducción, or El supergrupo, in which the authors crossed the DC icon with Marvel's Avengers.^{9 • 10} Jan, born Juan López Fernández in Toral de los Vados (León) in 1939, has accumulated more than 70 published albums, and the character has entered the history of Spanish comics as a vehicle for social criticism delivered through humor.^{9 • 11}

Development and production

The film took roughly two decades to reach the screen, passing through different creators and production companies before Ruiz Caldera's version. From Telecinco Cinema, the negotiation with a previous director did not come to fruition, and in 2014 the name of Javier Ruiz Caldera, then in preproduction on Anacleto: agente secreto, quickly emerged. Industry sources put the budget at around seven million euros, with a planned release on 500 screens; producers noted that in Hollywood that money would cover only the opening sequence of one of their productions.³

The screenplay is an original story rather than an adaptation of a specific album. Ruiz Caldera explained that Borja Cobeaga and Diego San José, the writers of the hit comedy Ocho apellidos vascos, wrote a script that reveals something Jan had never told, the origin of Superlópez, and that Jan himself said Dani Rovira seemed perfect for the role.¹² Shooting ran from 5 July to 19 September 2017, with 46 days of filming in Barcelona.¹ The production companies were Telecinco Cinema, Zeta Cinema, and La Gran Superproducción, with photography by Arnau Valls Colomer, music by Fernando Velázquez, and visual effects by El Ranchito.^{1 • 13}

Reception

The film was the second most-watched release in Spain in 2018, grossing more than €12.5 million, and was later watched by more than 2.5 million television viewers.¹⁴ Critics were mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 67% on the Tomatometer from six reviews and 46% from audiences.⁴ Luis Martínez of El Mundo called it "exactly the superhero that Spain deserves," a parody that is also "a very entertaining and somewhat cruel x-ray of mediocrity," while Carlos Marañón of Cinemania described it as "a deserved and superheroic tribute to national mediocrity."¹⁵ Javier Ocaña of El País judged that nothing in the film was badly made but that nothing was good enough to provoke real laughter, and argued that the movie takes from the comic only the roles and the parodic sense of Superman, lacking the social charge Jan had built into his work.¹⁶ The EspinOf review concluded that it works as entertainment but falls short as an adaptation, since the screenwriters deliberately pursued a different vision of the character, updating him and shifting the humor away from the absurdist tone of the early comics.¹⁷

At the 2019 Goya Awards the film won best special effects for Lluís Rivera and Laura Pedro, and was nominated for best production design and best adapted screenplay; it also won the Gaudí Award for best visual effects and was nominated for best comedy at the Feroz Awards.¹ As of recent listings the film is available on streaming services in Spain, including Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, but not in the United States or Brazil.⁵

References

1. Superlópez, ficha técnica, Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA)
2. Superlópez (2018), eCartelera
3. 'Superlópez': un largo despegue que ha durado dos décadas, El País
4. Superlópez, Rotten Tomatoes
5. Superlopez streaming, JustWatch
6. Superlópez, Cineuropa
7. Superlópez, Zeta Studios
8. Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival 2019 programme
9. Reseña de 'Lo mejor de Superlópez', MeriStation (AS)
10. Superlópez, ahora contra los yihadistas, El País
11. Superlópez al rescate, El País Babelia
12. Javier Ruiz Caldera: "Jan me ha dicho que Dani Rovira le parece perfecto como Superlópez", RTVE
13. Javier Ruiz Caldera, ficha de producción, Academia de Cine
14. Mediaset Group Annual Report 2018
15. Críticas profesionales de Superlópez, FilmAffinity
16. Superlópez: Superhéroe para la familia cañí, El País
17. 'Superlópez' funciona como entretenimiento pero falla como adaptación del cómic, EspinOf

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on comics and graphic novels

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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