I’m obviously part of the minority but I loved Superman Returns, and thought it was dark enough.
But I see their logic here, TDK = huge success, TDK = dark, so dark = huge success.
Wow, they’re so clever.
I’ve been saying for years that I want to see a good slugfest for Supes next time. That doesn’t mean “dark”, though. I’d just like to see him really throw down with Brainiac/powersuited Luthor/Zod/Darkseid/Doomsday/whatever. With modern effects work, such a battle would be spectacular.
I don’t know. The last movie, while great on paper, was a horrible train wreak. The only good thing that came out of it was the casting of Brandon Routh as Superman. Its unfortunate that Superman Returns probably has tainted him as well and he will not be used again.
I don’t know what they should do. At one time I thought going for a light hearted action comedy would be the best route but now, its pretty clear that isn’t going to sell or at least sell the number of tickets to justify a large budget a superman movie would require.
There are good dark Superman stories in comics but they all seem to dell with an older, end his career superman: Kingdom Come and Whatever happen to the Man of Tomorrow or alternate unverse concepts such as Red Son.
I guess the best option would be something along the lines of Hyperion from Supreme Power.
They haven’t had a take that wasn’t since the George Reeves show in my opinion.
I think part of the problem is that the Superman character is inherently goofy. It’s hard to do a live-action translation of a comic book and not have it appear silly when the costume is so iconic. The last two Batman, X-Men and Spider-man flicks dealt with it well. It’s just hard to properly translate a costumed superhero as being anything but comic-y when he’s flying around in a bright red and blue suit. Going “darker” I think wouldn’t help things much.
There’s a good Superman movie out there, but Warner Brothers has often ended up getting tangled in their own iconography, and
Superman is the easiest of all of them to mess up,
But the flaming train wreck of this last one was amazing. Some really good stuff has happened to the Superman canon over the last 30 years. Ignoring that to make a sequel to the first movie was incredibly dumb.
Our only hope is Daniel Day-Lewis as Superman.
Yeah, missing the boat here. Batman Begins and Dark Knight are dark and moody because that’s the right tone for Batman. Superman’s a far brighter, sunnier character. Dark is the wrong direction for him.
I’m calling it:
EMO SUPERMAN
The big problem for Superman dramatically is, how do you threaten him?
Your choices are: A) Temporarily depower him, or B) Threaten those around him. (There’s also magic, but no movie is going to touch that.)
Given that, you need to find a way to tell a good story without falling into all the messianic bullshit that seems to break all of the movies made so far.
You can try ladling on the internal angst, but that doesn’t seem much like the man we know and love.
I think ultimately you have to go more in the direction that the latest Batman film did; the villain has to drive him face up to the edge of the code that contains him, and push Supes up to, if not slightly over, the edge of his own morality. Darkseid would be perfect for that, and also because he represents a genuine physical threat as well.
I think you’d have to leave out the rest of the New Gods though. Seems like a lot to introduce in a two hour film.
No movie’s going to introduce magic, but you think they’re going to go for Darkseid?
I actually think Kevin Smith’s Superman Lives script could, with some work, be a pretty decent Superman movie. It’d be nice to see a Superman movie where Luthor wasn’t the main villain. With the exception of Superman 2, every Superman movie has been as if all six Batman movies were him versus the Joker. And Brainiac is a credible threat against Supes. Especially with the angle that Smith was giving him. Hell, figure out a way to toss in John Corben and you can even set up Superman Lives 2.
I’m in the “loved Superman Returns” minority as well.
It could have had a little more action, but the moments of characterization in that film were absolutely amazing. The scene where he sort of floats in a semi-fetal position in the upper atmosphere, listening for trouble. The way he’s almost-awkwardly chivalrous with Parker Posey’s character when she’s in the out-of-control Mustang. The “they can be a good people, Kal-El” voiceover from Brando in the original movie.
I don’t see how anyone who likes Superman could not like it.
I really liked Superman Returns, too. It was about as dark as I think they should go with the character. The real problem going forward is that Superman needs someone to fight! I mean, when it comes down to it, in Returns Superman fights an airplane, a gas leak and an island. None of these are compelling adversaries to hang a picture on. I think Kevin Spacey’s Luthor was actually really great, but it’s time for something new. Singer got the franchise through the difficult task of bringing him back to earth leaving things wide open to move forward so it would be a shame to reboot now.
The difficult task of bringing him back to Earth? Wasn’t him leaving in the first place entirely Singer’s creation?
Exactly. Superman Returns, was exactly that - Superman returns. Now that he’s back, the characters are defined, the next movie would probably have been the action fest comic fans had hoped for (a la X-Men 2).
Could it happen?
After a summer where they just made $1B on comic book movies, anything is possible.
To put it another way, what’s Zack Snyder doing after Watchmen?
It would all depend on who ends up directing it, but Darkseid is a solid Superman villain, perfect for the big screen, and putting some Kirby stuff on the screen might be just what Superman needs right now to push him out from the pack.
A dark Superman movie is just ridiculous. Just get Mxyzptlk and Bizarro on screen so Superman actually has a couple of bonafide threats to contend with. We can see a few slugfests, some humor and some clever ruse to get the imp to say Kltpzyxm.
I thought Zach established that he refuses to work below R, no?
Superman is best when he gets angry. Few foes can piss him off enough to get him to that point.
Bring on Darkseid.