Superman’s New Identity Revealed
After much speculation, the identity of the new new Superman has been revealed to be British actor Henry Cavill in the (yet another) reboot of the superhero series by Zack Snyder to be released December 2012 in theaters.
A little more exciting this time, with Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) and Zack Snyder (300) overseeing the project. The last Superman Returns was overly long, underly exciting, and featured the most metrosexual Superman ever. With the wave of superhero movies, hopefully they will come up with something good for the most famous of all. Cavill is best known as Charles Brandon in the Showtime series ‘The Tudors” and looks to be a pretty stellar pick.
He was formerly the top choice for an earlier director who was attached to remake the film a few years back.
While this has the general makings of an exciting new take on the series, the original and greatest Christopher Reeve has yet to be matched, and can be given credit for kicking off the whole superhero movie fad being the first film to announce “You Will Believe a Man Can Fly.” I sure did..and still do.
Nolan to Help Superman Return (Again)?
As a child, my cape sometimes was replaced by a baseball bat to be He-Man, or a belt to be Batman, but by the time I was 25 I grew out of such childish things and just stuck with Superman. I currently have a Superman bed set. And not the one that I had as a kid.
So needless to say, I’m a big Superman fan. Never much of a comic book reader, but the cartoons, Lois and Clark, Smallville, Superman I-IV, and then…Superman Returns. What was supposed to be the beginning of a Superman reboot turned out to be a clunker with a metrosexual Superman who liked a cruddy Lois Lane and fathered an illegitimate child.
With such great superhero movies since X-Men, it was sad to see the one with the most potential ruined. Some might say it’s Batman, which to this point has been the best, but Batman has a rich set of villains and a dark side. Making Superman a 4-star affair like The Dark Knight would be a much more difficult accomplishment.
So the news today is that Dark Knight helmer (and all around genius filmmaker) Christopher Nolan will be guiding an all-new reboot of the Superman franchise. With a string of failures (Superman III, Superman IV, Superman Returns) and some ill-conceived reboots that never got off the ground in 1990s, this will be a monumental undertaking.
According to the article:
DC Comics stalwart Superman to soar again on the Big Screen, and the studio has turned to Chris Nolan to mentor development of the movie. Our insiders say that the brains behind rebooted Batman has been asked to play a “godfather” role and ensure The Man Of Steel gets off the ground after a 3 1/2-year hiatus.
So which direction will he take it? The Superman story is much trickier than Batman due to the different source material, as Deadline Hollywood (where the story originally broke on the new reboot) explains..
Batman was rebooted according to Frank Miller’s film noirish take on Batman. But there’s a big difference between Superman’s cinematic incarnations and comic book version. Warner Brothers and DC Comics for a long time weren’t sure which version they liked better. The cinematic version has been squeaky clean, occasionally campy, and has more-or-less unlimited power except when confronted with Kryptonite.
The comic book version has some limits on his powers, can be darker, and fights aliens a lot more. Shortly after Dark Knight hit it big, fans assumed that Superman would be taken to the “dark” side as well. That’s because Warner Bros mogul Jeff Robinov stressed post-Dark Knight that “we have to look at how to make these movies edgier”. One of our insiders interpreted this to say: “He meant more sophisticated.”
Doing something based on the comics is risky..it’s not the Superman of Christopher Reeve (the best to date) that we know. And then there’s the currently running Smallville. While mostly dumb, they have chosen the perfect actors for the roles of Clark Kent (Tom Welling), Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) and Lois Lane (Erica Durance) and even many of the supporting cast. With good writing and effects, they could easily lead the new franchise..just would have to drop the entire Smallville story.
For me it’s all something to look forward to, especially if Christopher Nolan does take the reins. You don’t even want to see what types of things Tim Burton had in mind with Nicholas Cage in the lead role.
Full story at Deadline Hollywood.
No thanks.
Mark Millar Pitches Superman Godfather-style
As a lifelong Superman fan (from Superman underwear at 4 years old to Smallville still today..but now preferring Superman boxer briefs) I’m very keen on the latest Superman movie news. The Superman/Superman II movies were terrific, and we haven’t seen anything good on the big screen since.
Especially with the terrific Marvel movies (Spiderman, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk) there’s no reason why we should’ve gotten Superman Returns as the best effort. As reported recently, they’re rebooting the franchise, and Mark Millar is pushing for his ideas to be the storyline.
Millar recently revealed his ideas, and they’re Godfather-esque, in an upcoming interview. In it, he says:
“The problem with Superman Returns was like releasing Star Wars in ’77, The Empire Strikes Back in ’80 and then waiting 28 years to release Return of the Jedi, it wasn’t relevant. I understand what Bryan Singer was trying to do, to pay homage to Richard Donner’s original vision, but I think you should pay homage by doing something completely different.”
“I want to start on Krypton, a thousand years ago, and end with Superman alone on Planet Earth, the last being left on the planet, as the yellow sun turns red and starts to supernova, and he loses his powers.”
Superman fans should check out the rest of the interview here:
