The last Superman flick was kind of weak, poorly acted, and poorly scripted. When are they going to have a decent non-Luthor, non-origin Superman movie that doesn’t piss all over the canon like the last one did?
There are so many great Superman stories via the comics. Pick one! Use this as a starting point.
The problem I have is that Superman is such an incredibly infallible and invulnerable do-gooder that it is pretty much impossible to threaten him in any way without Kryptonite, which really gets old in a hurry. It can also lead to the plots being the most kindergarden basic morality stories.
In some of the older movies, they went for “Haha, Superman can’t be in two places at once.” Screw that. Superman can’t be everywhere at once, so you strike in dozens and hundreds of places at one time. You hurt Superman by making him fail. And you make him fail by setting up situations where his skills and abilities are useless, or even worse, a liability. Screw the lead lined truck with the bomb in it, or even as a decoy. You have the bombs (plural) that are set off by exposure to his x-ray vision.
I realize that a good part of Superman’s popularity is that he is “super” but there are so many good stories that could be done without relying on him to be constantly saving or rescuing people. Kingdom Come is just one example. Darkseid (and Apokolips) is another character where Superman’s powers are not as meaningful and he has to use strategy to win.
Imho, the bar is too high. After Superman 2, who is Superman going to kneel before? Kneel before Luthor? Nah. Kneel before Darkseid? Nope. There’s only one person Superman kneels to, and it’s Zod.
Imho, when Superman 2 came out, the series was finished right there. There was really no point or purpose to even trying to top that one.
They already did. Greatest movie ever.
I think it could be revitalized if it really went back and rebooted it from the true source material – the original 1930’s comic books – set it in the 30’s – and dialed back Supe’s powers to what they originally were before they became inflated into Godlike omnipotence. He’s really strong, but not planet-juggling strong. he’s fast, but not FTL fast. He can jump really high, but not literally fly.
I think reducing his powers might sound counter-intuitive, but in my opinion, it would really open the character up, humanize him more, make him more relatable and vulnerable and would be a take nobody’s done yet. It also can’t be argued that it’s not canon because it’s pure canon. I also think it would give the best opportunity to be able to “Nolanize” the material, and set it in some kind of at least minimally imaginable reality if instead of unlimited, god powers, Supe was basically just freakishly athletic in comparison to normal earthlings, but not unlimited or absurd in that regard. It still probably wouldn’t be strictly realistic, but it could at least be contained within pseudo-science explanations.
I think setting it in the 30’s would enhance it a lot too, since it would allow Clark and Lois to interact in a 1930’s, screwball, newspaper movie comedy style that, once again, would be canon.
My suggestion for casting would be Joseph Gorden-Levitt as Clark/Supes, and maybe somebody like Zoey Deschanel as Lois Lane (the single worst thing about the last movie was that department store mannequin they had playing LL).
And Jonah Hill as Jimmy Olsen.
I haven’t seen that movie in forever. Is it really worth a re-watch, or are you just funnin’ me.
She was astoundingly awful.
He’s messin’ with you. It is bad. Superman IV bad.
Those two have already been cast as leads against each other, in ‘500 Days of Summer’ last year. I haven’t seen it, but apparently their chemistry was favorably reviewed. 
Anyone else ever listened to the commentary for Superman IV? I don’t remember who did it, but he starts off by apologizing…
It’s great. Through a long series of events too tedious to get into, my siblings and I ended up watching it every Christmas Eve for at least a decade, and we can all quote it to an embarrassing extent. However, that said, the version we had, which was taped off an ABC broadcast back in the 80s, differs from any commercially available edition (yes, including Richard Donner’s edition he came out with a few years ago), and naturally it’s far better than anything you’ll be able to get ahold of.
A script for a new movie called “The Man of Steel” is being written at this time by Christopher S. Goyer and Jonathon Nolan. It is not an origin story and supposedly includes Luthor and Brainiac. In addition, Christopher Nolan, caretaker of the Batman franchise (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) has been given control of the Superman movie franchise, although he is not likely to direct. No actors have been announced, but it is expected to be released on Christmas, 2012.
Also, the families of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster have recaptured all movie rights to Superman and also have regained copyrights to Superman’s origin story and all elements of it such as depictions of Superman’s origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lara, and Superman as the infant Kal-El,. They also control rights to Superman’s costume, his alter-ego of Clark Kent, the characters of Perry White and Lois Lane, and The Daily Planet. They have also recaptured motion picture rights to Superman and those rights will revert to them in 2013. So Warner Brothers is under incredible pressure to get a Superman movie into production no later than next year. After 2012, the Siegels and Schusters can shop Superman around to other studios. either for movie projects or TV shows.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007269.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562
I think a pre-WW2 setting Superman would have to be set in an alternate past where all the chiches’ of pulp comics were real, ala Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow. Almost forgotten today is that originally Superman was supposed to be a specimen of a more evolved/eugenically improved human from a planet thousands of years more advanced than us. Superman was supposed to be a futuristic hero, by circa 1940 futurism. So the Man of Tomorrow would be battling mad scientists with death rays, lab grown monsters of roughly Frankenstein tech level, and art-deco robots.
It’s an interesting concept, but I’m more in favor of putting Superman into an ensemble role with other DC heroes fighting a universal menace before I would go full bore retro with Superman.
That sounds like Mr. Incredible.
My question would be when are they going to make Superman flying actually look remotely convincing because so far in the films I’ve seen they never seem to be able to do so.
I think Superman 2 was close, and with some changes could have pure awesomeness. The basic plot was a classic Superman story, IMHO. Make the super powers consistent and not stupid (no heat vision that is also telekenisis, or chucking cellophane letters at people), less silly humor.
A remake of that could be something.
Only that’s not true. Non comic-books fans think Superman is indestructible save kryptonite, but there are several villains that have beaten him to a bloody pulp, while on Earth with it’s glorious yellow rays, with nary a piece of kryptonite to be seen.
Doomsday is the biggest one to come to mind, for me anyway, because (AFAIK) he’s been the only villain to kill Superman by doing nothing but punching him…really hard…a lot. (Ok, he probably kicked him a few times, too.)
I checked and Kryptonians do have external genitalia, so there could have been some below-the-yellow-belt kicks, too.
“I’d take kryptonite over getting super-punched in the nads, myself”, says Zor-El in Krypto-Quotes: Interviews with the House of El, by Kurt Busiek, Kurt Loder, Kurt Schaffenberger and Curt Swan.