With Max Landis’ movie Chronicle opening in theaters this weekend, you might be wondering to yourself just how the young writer became interested in superheroic origins or why he chose to give one of his protagonists supervillain tendencies. Well it just so happens that we’ve come across a short directed and narrated by Landis himself that might explain some things. In The Death and Return of Superman, Landis (along with some famous friends like Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Ron Howard, Simon Pegg and Chris Hardwick) takes viewers through an NSFW recap of the infamous DC comic series that saw the fall (and rise) of the last son of Krypton. Hit the jump to check it out.

Here’s the brief synopsis for Landis’ The Death and Return of Superman.

An educational parody film by Max Landis, Produced by Bryan Basham

Starring Elden Henson, Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Morgan Krantz and many more.

Check out the video below and let us know your thoughts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the comics (from Amazon):

One of the most stunning events in modern comics history is collected at last in a single, huge graphic novel.

The Death of Superman at the hands of the nightmare creature called Doomsday made headlines across the country in the 1990s, and now DC Comics has gathered the story of the Man of Steel's death and return in one volume for the first time ever. This amazing story guest stars the Justice League of America and many other DC Comics heroes as they witness the fall and rise of the greatest super-hero of all time.