Per this article it looks like Superman will get yet another make over.
Per the below I’m kind of wonderingif it will have a giant spider
I would hope they learned a lot from the last movie, because it was uniformly terrible when it wasn’t being outlandishly dumb.
They may be trying to use the recent successes of the Batman and Spider-Man franchises as a template, but those heroes are filled with greater character complexity and moral uncertainty than we’re used to seeing from Supes. It’s a tough nut (one a massive arachnid alone can’t solve 
), and I’d be perfectly fine with them doing a Justice League film since his conflicts and relationships with the other members might serve for the kind of compelling drama that the last several solo films have been sorely lacking.
Wasn’t the last Superman movie a reboot? Or was it a continuation?
I don’t like Superman, and I don’t think you can get him right with his traditional storyline (what little I know about it) because he doesn’t give people what they want from their superheroes nowadays, which is weakness. He isn’t compelling. I don’t want to watch a Superman movie because it basically comes down to which new! clever! way the villain can use kryptonite. And if you redesigned the entire canon, wouldn’t people whine and complain?
Pretty tough spot to be in for these folks. He’s one of the most recognizable characters so there is an inescapable pull to make movies about him… but the last movie wasn’t particularly successful and yet you can’t change anything because people will riot in the streets and march on your front lawn.
It was more of a re-quel. It was a sequel to the first two but it ignored the rest.
A Dark Knight Superman would be a mistake. Superman is a hero, and I think the best way to go is to look into how heroes are treated now that we rarely believe in them (Captain Sullenberger is one of the few pure heroes around). I could see a very interesting movie where Superman tries to be the old-fashioned hero and is derided for the attempt. Stay away from a villain, but stick with him trying to keep his values in a world that no longer believes in them.
It would be a welcome change to have a Superhero film that doesn’t devolve into a fistfight at the end.
The worst part of the Superman movies was that not only was he overpowered, but his primary Villain, Lex Luthor, was basically used as comic relief, making the situation even more unbalanced.
The best Superman movie was the 2nd one (“with the evil Kryptonians”) because it had a conflicted Superman, a powerful and serious villian and a situation Superman couldn’t solve just by punching through brick walls.
So key to making a good Superman film, make it with an interesting and dangerous Luthor instead of a fop.
I think if they were to treat Superman as an extraterrestrial who just looks human, then that might work. Play up the alien aspect. I think that was what Nicholas Cage wanted to do when he was involved in a potential Superman movie a few years ago. Cage is a big fan. The guy named one of his children ‘Kal-El’ of all things!
Over the years just about every aspect of Superman’s been retconned, rebooted, reimagined, rejigged and rewritten enough times in the comics, and on radio, TV and film, for there to be considerable freedom to attempt a different take on the story. After all, Smallville doesn’t match any previous version of Clark’s early years, except in broad strokes.
I just hope they don’t feel they need to go right back to the beginning and have him rocketed to earth as a baby from the dying world of Krypton etc yet again. Surely the audience for a Superman film is going to be familiar enough with all that to be to take it as read, this time around?
I agree. You can make him a complex character without turning him into a morally ambiguous one, ala “The Dark Knight.”
Superman II focused on his emotional vulnerabilities and how he felt about his place in the world (as well pitting him against villains who were his physical equals) and it was the best of the bunch.
Superman Returns kind of hinted that it would do that, but then it turned into more of the same old, same old with Superman as an invincible boy scout (hell, even a city-sized chunk of Kryptonite couldn’t stop him) performing random feats of heroism, and Lex Luthor as a comically evil but one-dimensional villain.
They need to use the All-Star Superman origin and just get on with the action. Morrison and Quietly used four panels to tell everything you need to know about Superman’s origin.
Actually, a movie with plotlines lifted from All-Star Superman would be pretty awesome. So long as they got someone other than that wooden dummy Routh or aging mopey whatshisname from Smallville to play Clark.
…do what they have apparently been very afraid to ever do in a Superman movie. Give him a villian that can take him on mentally and physically AND use the fact that he is virtually indestructable and up the spectacle of destruction to disaster movie level.
Ahem…the aforementioned Superman II.
I was going to say that they need something like that just for the beginning. For some reason, comic movies always need to start with an origin, but Superman is so well known.
Have the opening credits roll with a comic in the background showing the red and blue rocket launching from an exploding Krypton, discovered by Ma and Pa Kent, a few childhood feats and a last panel that shows Superman in his red and blues disolving into the live action thing would work for me. The music from the movies is so iconic to me as well, I don’t see any reason to use anything else.
There are enemies he can go against that match up with him physically as well as mentally like Darkseid or Braniac. They could have Luthor use the Parasite for a thug or something as well. Do a “Brains and brawn” kind of thing.
Superman Returns missed it in several places. For one, they made Superman a super voyeur and a deadbeat dad. Also, the scene where the jewel thieves are on top of a building with a minigun bolted to the roof. There was absolutelty no reason for that to happen other than to show that Superman is bulletproof. The gun probably cost the theives as mush as the hiest would have made them, and then they’re stuck on a roof with a bolted gun on it trying to get away. The whole Kryptonite island, while intriguing, was poorly resolved.
The first two movies are really good and although they have their weak moments, still hold up today.
They could base it on the Superman: Red Son comic series. The ensuing head explosions from some conservative pundits would be world class entertainment in itself.
I think that there is plenty of depth to deal with Superman, especially nowadays. He’s an idealist in a world populated by … well unidealists. He’s the anti-antihero. A good writer could easily create a likable villain for Supes to play off of, and with more use of kryptonite to make him not so invulnerable, there is plenty that could be done. With the modern era, Superman is a thing of the past, and having him have to struggle to keep his idealism would be great.
And it will never happen.
I can’t recall a single fistfight anywhere in Superman Returns…that’s part of why it blows.
We watch Batman movies when we want a morally ambiguous detective, we watch Spider-Man when we want a young, wisecracking hero who also has the harsh rigors of everyday life…we watch Superman movies to see a really strong guy beat the living fuck out of another really strong guy.
I want the next one to have Doomsday, and end with Superman dieing.
my personal opinion on how to reboot superman:
1 - make it a trilogy. they’ll make a butt ton of money, because after all that’s what this is all about.
2 - make it 3d, because they’ll make a but ton of money…
3 - instead of introducing a new villain in each movie, stick with one, two max villain(s) across all three. the spiderman series screwed the pooch by cramming too many villains into the movie, even before the 3rd one. brainiac/luthor would be my suggestions.
4 - don’t consumate the love relationship until the 3rd movie. sexual tension drives a story.
5 - while superman isn’t exactly dark knight, he is lonely. as clark kent, he’s a loser. as superman, he’s in an ivory tower. playing up this fact draws viewer sympathy.
6 - nerf him/finding ways to hurt him other than kryptonite. poisons, asphyxiation, etc should all be able to work. he is still a biological creature. one scene that particularly bothered me in superman returns was that bullets would literally hit his eyeball and bounce off. i mean come on. the man is bulletproof, but he’s not god. i’m bb-proof but if a pellet nailed me in the eye, i would be in pain.
I like the idea that since Superman doesn’t belong in the modern world, you should make it a period piece. Have it set in the 70s, 60s, 50s or 40s. It could be framed with an old Supes in the modern world reminiscing about his past glories.
Slow and awkward- mostly due to how they could do the special effects at the time. Imagine that but actually tearing the city apart instead of a bill board and a bus.
No.
No.
No.
A thousand times no.
If you want to do this story DON’T DO IT TO A CHARACTER THAT IT GOES AGAINST THE VERY CORE CONCEPT.
At least for the modern version and the best of the Bronze and Silver Age…it’s completely tangential to the Golden Age. The worse of the Bronze and Silver Age? (And a handful of terribly off-kilter modern stories, admittedly.) Well… ‘He’s an ALIEN! NOT HUMAN! So he’s LONELY!’ has a 100% success rate of creating Superman stories that go completely and totally wrong.
He misses Krypton, or wishes he could remember it, depending on the version of the story, but he has adopted Earth as his home, and Earth has adopted him as one of our own.
Superman isn’t a story about an alien, it’s a story about an adoptee and an immigrant. One who happens to have immigrated from an alien planet and been adopted because his family all died with his homeworld, but the part that informs who he is is that he WAS adopted, by a loving family, by a large circle of friends, by an entire world.
‘Alien’ is his origin, not his character.